Lands 




The Story of an Expedition to 

Heame's (bppermine I(iyer 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



QDQD4747D21 # 




COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Lands Forlorn 

A Story of an Expedition to 

Hearne's Coppermine River 




By 

George M. Douglas 

With an Introduction by 

James Douglas, LL.D. 



With 180 Photographs by the Author, and Maps 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 

Ube iRnicfeerbocfeer press 

1914 



q 



Copyright, 1914 

BY 

GEORGE M. DOUGLAS 



NOV 19 1914 

Ube Iftnfcfterbocfeer Press, Iftcw JJJorft 

©CI.A388462 



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i 



INTRODUCTION 

Y cousin, George Mellis Douglas, the leader of the expedition 
described in this narrative, is an engineer, and has had wide 
experience of small craft. After years of work in the arid South- 
west he was naturally seized with an uncontrollable thirst for water, and 
one day told me of his longing to explore some one of the rivers flowing into 
the Arctic Sea. Half in jest I undertook to "grubstake" him, if he would 
report on the copper-bearing rocks of Hearne's Coppermine River. He 
accepted the challenge. And this book is one of the results. It contains 
a narrative of travel in arctic Canada by three youths without native guides, 
who brought back scientific information of great interest and importance. 
Hearne's Coppermine River, flowing into the Arctic Ocean in Latitude 68° 
40/ N., and Longitude 115 32' W., was chosen as offering an exceptionally 
interesting field for exploration, partly because the results might have a 
final commercial value. 

In his introductory chapter the author describes how rumours and 
proofs of great copper deposits among the mountains in the far north 
prompted the earlier explorations of that inhospitable land. The Indian 
tales of the remote copper mines were as far from accurate as is many a 
mining report in the prospectus of a modern promoter. Instead of a moun- 
tain of copper Hearne found one lump of metal, which he picked up "among 
a jumble of rocks. " Copper may. once have been more prodigally exposed, 
but for centuries the croppings had been searched for float metal by the 
Eskimos and by the Coppermine River Indians, who used it as an article 



iv flntrobuction 

of barter over the whole North-west. It was carried by them eastward to 
the Hudson Bay and westward to the Pacific. The Eskimos are said still 
to prefer it for certain uses to iron. 

Dr. Sandberg examined and mapped only the section of the Copper 
Range immediately west of the Coppermine River, but the party followed 
the same traps to the Dismal Lake and found them strewn on the shores of 
Great Bear Lake one hundred and fifty miles west of the Coppermine River. 
Simpson, Hanbury, and others picked up metallic copper on the beach of the 
islands in Bathurst Inlet. Thus these rocks, with a general north-east and 
south-west strike, have been traced for some three hundred miles, and if the 
same rocks really reappear in Victoria Land, where Stef ansson describes 
the Eskimos as gathering copper, their cross-section must be vastly greater 
than the corresponding series on Lake Superior. The total area, therefore, 
within which copper ore may possibly be found, covers nearly ten thousand 
square miles. 

Whether profitable ore occurs anywhere in this district can be deter- 
mined only by a thorough survey, followed, should favourable indications 
be found, by exploratory development on an extensive scale. Our three 
explorers confirmed Sir John Richardson's diagnosis of the identity of these 
copper-bearing rocks with the melaphyres and conglomerates of the Kee- 
weenaw series of Lake Superior. This was conclusively proved by Graton's 
petrological examination of the hundred samples of rocks brought out by 
our explorers. On analysis a large proportion of these rock samples con- 
tained traces of metallic copper — two of them were ores of profitable grade. 
What they did for the first time was to trace and map the succession of beds 
which compose this interesting — possibly commercially important — group 
of rocks. In this work they even preceded the Canadian Geological Survey. 

The region may become one of the great copper producers of the world. 
It is now still inaccessible; but the eastermost exposure of these rocks, so 
far as known, is not more than five hundred miles distant from navigable 
water in Hudson Bay, over a possible railroad route. And a railroad from 
the south is already projected to within eight hundred miles of their most 



flntrofcuction v 

westerly exposure. As far back as 1845 Alexander Simpson anticipated that 
"It is possible that ere this century has passed, an organised system of 
internal communication such as that which traverses Northern Asia may 
place this valuable natural deposit within the reach of commerce." He 
was too sanguine. The climate is severe. But so is that of Lake Superior; 
and for about twenty-five years after the native copper mines of Michigan 
were first opened they were shut off from the east by ice from steam 
communication, for almost half the year. 

As to fuel, lignite is plentiful within the arctic circle, and our explorers 
brought samples from a large bed of it which crops out on the shores of the 
Great Bear Lake. If copper ores therefore exist in large quantities, and are 
of a profitable grade, the unfavourable conditions are not sufficiently pro- 
hibitive to prevent their being exploited. And the race has happily not 
yet become so effeminate that men cannot be found willing to exchange the 
luxuries of civilisation for the novelties and adventures of work in the wilder- 
ness, when the inducement is added of winning from Nature the treasures she 
has hidden away in such inhospitable regions. 

James Douglas. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. — An Historical Summary i 

II. — By Scow and Steamer 6 

Down the Athabasca and Mackenzie Rivers. 

III. — The Voyage of the "Jupiter" 48 

The Bear River and Great Bear Lake. 

IV. — The Voyage of the "Polaris" ...... 90 

Our First Journey to the Coppermine. 

V. — The Twilight of the Year 138 

VI. — A Winter in the Arctic . . . . . . .151 

VII. — Spring Journeys . . . . . . . . .170 

VIII. — Toboggan and Pack 179 

IX.— Homeward Bound 234 

The Voyage of the Aldebaran. 

X. — Steamer and Scow again 262 

XI. — Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . 270 

L'Envoi by " Clansman " (Bryce. McMaster.) 

APPENDIX 
Geognostical Observations on the Coppermine Mountains . 275 

By John Richardson, M.D. 1822 

Geological Report ........ 2yy 

By August Sandberg, Ph.D. 



Vll 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

George M. Douglas ....... Frontispiece 

(From the painting by E. Wyly Grier.) 

PAGE 

The First Voyage of the "Aldeb aran" 10 

The Athabasca Stage 1 1 

On the Road to Athabasca Landing 12 

"Eggie's". ........... 13 

Good-bye to Civilisation . . . 14 

On the River below the Athabasca Landing 15 

"Bannock Island" . . . . ...... 16 

Calling River .......... 17 

Pelican Portage . . . . .... . . .18 

Grand Rapids 19 

The Lower End of the Island at Grand Rapids .... 20 

Scow Leaving the Island . 21 

The Athabasca Brigade 22 

The Cascade Rapids . 23 

Cook Scow Running the Cascade ....... 24 

At the Cascade Rapids . . . . . . . . .25 

On Board the Scow . 26 

The Descent of the Athabasca River 27 

Fort McMurray 28 

A Trading Store at Fort McMurray . . . . .29 

The Hudson Bay Co.'s Steamer " Grahame " 30 

ix 



x Wlustrationa 



PAGE 



The Hudson Bay Co.'s Store at Fort McMurray . . . . 31 

Idle Days 31 

The Clearwater River 32 

The "Grahame" Tied up for the Night 33 

The Hudson Bay Co.'s Buildings at Fort Chipewyan ... 34 

The Roman Catholic Mission at Fort Chipewyan .... 35 

Coming from the Nets 36 

The Eastern Part of Fort Chipewyan . . . . . -37 

The Outskirts of Fort Chipewyan 38 

"Bull Dogs" on Cabin Window . 39 

Fort Smith ........... 40 

The Hudson Bay Co.'s Steamer " Mackenzie River " at Fort Smith . 41 

On the Lower Slave River 42 

Fort Resolution 43 

Fort Simpson -44 

The Radford Expedition. The "Jupiter" in the Background . 45 

Trappers' Shack on the Salt River 46 

The Finish of their Long Winter ....... 47 

The Beach at Fort Norman 49 

Main Street, Fort Norman 5° 

Mackenzie River and the Bear Rock from Fort Norman . . 51 

The Bear Rock from our Camp ....... 5 2 

The "Jupiter" at Fort Norman ....... 53 

Lion and the Doctor . . . . . . . -54 

Our Indian Crew .......... 55 

We Make a Start 56 

Banks of the Bear River ........ 57 

Bear River — The Franklin Mountains 5 8 

A Camp on the Bear River . . . . . . . . 59 



Wluetrationa xi 



PAGE 



Mount Charles .......... 60 

Ice Field below the Rapids 61 

Ice Cliffs at the Rapids . . 62 

Along the Ice Cliffs 63 

We Camp at the Rapids .. . . ■ . . . . . .64 

Taking a Spell 65 

The "Aldebaran" and the "Polaris" being Tracked up the Rapids. 66 

A Disheartening Prospect 67 

The Last Stretch of the Ice Cliffs ...... 68 

Cut Banks above the Rapids ........ 69 

On the Upper Bear River ........ 70 

Our First View of Great Bear Lake 71 

Entrance to Sir John Franklin's Little Lake 72 

At Little Lake 73 

The "Jupiter" under Full Canvas 76 

A Welcome Harbour ......... 79 

Remains of Old Fort Confidence 84 

We Arrive at the Dease River .85 

Hodgson's Shack . . . 86 

Unloading the "Jupiter" 87 

Preparing for our Journey to the Coppermine . . . . 88 

The "Jupiter's" Last Harbour ....... 89 

The Site of our House . 91 

The " Polaris " and her Crew . . . . . . . .92 

The Canon . . . . . 94 

The Canon — Old Man of Hoy to Right 95 

Observation Hill . . . . . . . . . . 96 

Wading . . ... . . . . . . . . 98 

Notman Dyke . ... ... . . .99 



Xll 



Illustrations 



PAGE 



Hanbury's Kopje . . . . . . . . . . ioo 

Camp at Hanbury's Kopje ..... . . . 101 

"Penury, Inertness and Grimace .... were the Land's Portion" . 105 

Along the Divide . . . . 107 

Dismal Lake ........... 108 

Camp at the Narrows — Dismal Lake . . . . . .111 

Eskimo Kayak and Cache . . . . . . . .112 

The Kendall River — Remains of Simpson's "Spring Provision Sta- 
tion" 115 

Canon near the Mouth of the Kendall River . . . .116 

Junction of the Kendall River with the Coppermine . . . 117 

The Coppermine River . . . . . . . . .118 

We Arrive at the Coppermine Mountains . . . . .119 

Camp at the Coppermine River 120 

Coppermine Mountains — Characteristic Terraces . . . .121 

Headwaters of Stoney Creek — North Branch . . . .122 

Coppermine Mountains and River . . . . . . .123 

The Road Home 124 

A View down the Coppermine River . . . . . . .125 

Sandy Creek ........... 129 

Simpson's Point .......... 130 

Hodgson's Point and its Builder 134 

At the End of our Voyage 135 

Bear Lakers Breaking Camp . . . . . . . . 141 

Some of the Bear Lake Indians. Francois Family to Right . 142 

Camp at Old Fort Confidence . . . . . . . 144 

The First Journey with Dogs , 145 

The Shack Built by Father Rouvier and Hornby . . . .146 

Hodgson's Point at the Beginning of Winter . . . . .152 



Illustrations xitf 



PAGE 



The Fireplace ........... 153 

The Kitchen 154 

Lion's Corner 155 

The Author in his Corner 161 

Our Xmas Party. Left to Right : Lion, Father Rouvier, the Doctor, 

Myself . . . . . . . . : . . 163 

Hodgson's Point in the Middle of April 164 

Lion 165 

Father Rouvier .......... 167 

Father Rouvier Leaving Hodgson's Point . . . . .168 

Lion and the Doctor Start for Lake Rouvier 171 

Francois' Tepee at Hodgson's Point 172 

From Left to Right: "Potash," "Punch," "Geoff," "Nigger" . 173 

The Unwilling "Potash" ........ 174 

"Jack" 177 

The Grand Start 180 

Crossing Wind-Swept Ridges 181 

Teshierpi Camp .......... 183 

The Rock Slide in Spring . ... 186 

First Spring Camp at the Coppermine Mountains . . . .187 

The Coppermine River in Early May . . . . . .188 

The " Good Hope " . . 190 

Hornby's Triumph 191 

Warbles in the Skin of a Caribou. Early May . . . .192 

Hornby and " Punch " ......... 193 

Burnt Camp 196 

Sandstone Cliffs on the Lower Coppermine River . . . .197 

The "Musk Ox Rapids" . . .198 

Characteristic Sandstone Formation, Lower Coppermine River . 199 



xiv Illustrations 



PAGE 



A Basalt Dyke. Sir John Franklin's "Sandstone Rapids" . . 200 

Tailing Dump Camp . 201 

The Bloody Falls . 202 

The Bloody Falls — A Closer View ....... 203 

The Lower Part of the Bloody Falls 204 

Eskimos Crossing on the Jammed Ice at Bloody Falls . . . 205 

View towards Cape Hearne ........ 207 

On Coronation Gulf 208 

Eskimos near the Coast 210 

A Summer Camp . . . . . . . . . .211 

Camp Comfort ........... 213 

Boulder Bed Camp in June 214 

Glacier Cove ........... 216 

Ferrying our Stuff to the Ice . . . . . . .217 

Crossing the Second Dismal Lake . . . . . . .218 

Teshierpi Camp again 219 

Eskimos at Teshierpi Camp ........ 220 

Eskimo Hunting Ptarmigan 221 

Looking Pleasant . ; 222 

Harry and the Eskimos . . . . . . . . . 223 

Kayak Frame and Double-Bladed Paddle ..... 224 

Our Visitors ........... 225 

And a Back View of them 226 

View on the Dease River ........ 229 

Limestone Walls of Canyons . 230 

Good-bye . . . . . . . . . . . 232 

We Begin our Journey across the Great Bear Lake . . . 233 

Detention Point 236 

Camp at Detention Point ........ 237 



Wlustrations xv 



PAGE 



The Midnight Sun 238 

Sand Hills Camp and the Little Lake . . . . . .241 

An Indian Grave 242 

Waiting ............ 245 

Bear River near Bear Lake 251 

Indians Tracking Up-Stream ........ 252 

The Fathers on their Journey up the Bear River .... 253 

Mount Charles — From the East ....... 254 

Our Camp at Fort Norman in July, 1912 ...... 255 

Family Birch Bark Canoe ........ 256 

Roman Catholic Mission 257 

Indian Camp at Fort Norman ........ 258 

The Skin Boat ........... 259 

The Hudson Bay Co.'s Party and their Passengers .... 264 

Fort McKay 265 

The " Primrose " 266 

A Long Hard Struggle ......... 267 

Slow but Sure 268 

Maps . At end 



Lands Forlorn 



AN HISTORICAL SUMMARY 

EARLY in the eighteenth century it was reported by the Indians, who 
came to trade at the recently established Hudson Bay Co.'s post on 
the Churchill River, that great deposits of copper existed near the 
banks of a large river to the north. 

At that time nothing was known of the northern coast of the continent, 
and a north-west passage was considered quite a feasible undertaking. 
The first attempts at exploration were made by sea, and they were 
prompted by the hope of discovering such a passage and of finding 
mineral wealth at the same time. 

Such expeditions were those of Knight in 1719; of Middleton in 1741; 
and of Moor and Smith in 1746. 

Knight and his crew perished to the last man, passing completely out 
of knowledge for nearly fifty years, when traces of the party were at last 
found on Marble Island, and a pathetic account of their tragic end was 
gleaned from the neighbouring Eskimos. 

The voyages of Middleton and of Moor and Smith resulted only in a 
slightly more definite knowledge of the west coast of Hudson Bay. Wager 
Inlet was found to be a landlocked bay and not, as was hoped, a possible 



2 Xanbs jforlorn 

passage to the west. They also discovered Repulse Bay and Frozen 
Strait. 

The chief result of these voyages was to demonstrate the difficulties 
of a north-west passage. The next attempt to reach the reputed copper 
mines, by the Hudson Bay Co. in 1769, was made overland. 

Samuel Hearne was chosen to be in command of the expedition, if 
the word "command" may be used to express his complete dependence on a 
party of irresponsible Chipewyans. Indeed the organisation of this ex- 
pedition shows a curious ignorance on the part of the Hudson Bay Co. of 
the real character of the Indians and an extravagant estimation of their 
influence over them. 

Hearne' s guides led him and his two white companions a couple of 
hundred miles out of the barrens, robbed them of everything they had, 
and then left them to find their way back to the post as best they could. 

Undeterred by these hardships Hearne made a second start a few 
months later. He took no white men on this occasion but only two of the 
company's Indian servants. As before he was dependent on a party of 
Chipewyans. 

The thoroughly unreliable character of his guides probably would 
have doomed this attempt to failure also even if Hearne had not been 
obliged to return a second time, having had the misfortune to break his 
quadrant, an essential part of his outfit. 

He could replace this at the fort only with an old and cumbersome 
instrument that had lain there for thirty years. Small blame to him that 
his subsequent observations were inaccurate. 

On December 7, 1770, he made a third start under the guidance of a 
Chipewyan chief named Mattonabee. He was alone on this occasion and 
completely dependent on the whims of a party of Indians. The friend- 
ship of their principal man saved him from actual molestation, but he had 
no more influence with his guides than one of their own women. 

The movement of the party was governed by their success in hunting. 
That they reached the Coppermine River at all was due to the decision of 



Hn Historical Summary 3 

Hearne's Chipewyans, who had been joined by a number of Copper Indians, 
to have an " Eskimo Hunt," evidently a popular form of amusement with 
the Northern Indians at that time. 

Alexander Simpson, writing in 1845, says of these pleasant pastimes: 
"An Eskimo Hunt has always been a favourite diversion among the 
Border Indians. A decrepit Indian who acted as cook at a station where 
I resided often told me of the pleasure he enjoyed when an active youth 
in going on these expeditions." 

Hearne's party was augmented till it numbered several hundred. 
They journeyed north and west to a lake afterwards called, by Franklin, 
Run Lake. The Indians left their families here ; the final war-party con- 
sisted of sixty men. Travelling light and making long marches they struck 
the Coppermine River about thirty miles from the sea and followed it down 
to the last rapid. 

It was by now the middle of July. A party of Eskimos was camped 
here fishing for salmon, as these people do to this day. The Indians waited 
for a chance when the Eskimos were quiet in their tents and then, in spite 
of Hearne's protestations, fell on them and slaughtered them all to the 
number of more than twenty. In memory of this massacre Hearne named 
the rapids the Bloody Falls. 

The Indians had now accomplished the purpose of their journey and 
their only concern was to get back to their families as soon as possible. 
On their return journey Hearne examined what the Indians told him was 
the copper mine. He describes it as being about thirty miles from the 
mouth of the river and "an entire jumble of rocks and gravel." Only a 
small lump of copper rewarded his search. He was greatly disappointed; 
in his complete ignorance of the subject he seems to have expected that 
the copper really would be lying around in lumps like a heap of rocks as 
the Indians had reported. 

Four hours was all the time he spent prosecuting the main object of 
his journey ; with his band of Indians impatient to get home it was probably 
the most he could do. 



4 Xante fforlorn 

After another year of roaming with the Indians Hearne finally arrived 
safely at Fort Churchill. He had made a journey that still remains one 
of the most remarkable on record. He was the first man to reach the 
shores of the Arctic Ocean and he discovered Great Slave Lake. 

Hearne' s unfavourable account of the copper mines and their un- 
doubted inaccessibility killed all interest in them for a long time to come. 
The next account we have of these copper deposits was given by Captain 
Franklin and Dr. J. Richardson on their return from Franklin's overland 
journey to the Arctic, in 1 819-20-2 1-22. 

The main object of this journey was geographical research, but the 
reputed copper deposits were not overlooked, and Franklin was instructed 
" on his arrival at or near the mouth of the Coppermine River to make every 
enquiry as to the situation of the spot whence native copper had been 
brought down by the Indians to the Hudson Bay Co.'s establishment and 
to visit and explore the place in question." 

Geographical discovery was paramount to Franklin, and the zeal of 
the whole party was directed to that end. They devoted only one day to 
an examination of the Coppermine Mountains and even that short investi- 
gation was made chiefly because they happened to kill some musk oxen 
in the vicinity which necessitated a delay in any case to dry the meat. 

With such scant time at their disposal their investigations were of 
course very superficial, but so keen an observer as Dr. Richardson made 
good use of the time, and his description of the mountains is excellent in 
its accuracy (see Appendix A). 

This is the first and hitherto the latest description of those great 
copper deposits. The difficulties of development and transport were 
considered so insuperable that the whole question was dismissed as being 
quite impracticable for any mercantile speculation. 

The Coppermine River was used as a route by several explorers during 
the next thirty years, but nothing was added to our knowledge of the 
copper deposits till 1838 when Thomas Simpson called attention to the great 
abundance and extent of the copper deposits on the islands in Bathurst Inlet. 



Hn Ibistorical Summary 5 

After Dr. Rae's journey to Wollaston Land in 1851 the country was 
un visited till 1902 when David Hanbury ascended the Coppermine River. 
With two white men and some Eskimos he had made the extraordinary 
journey from Chesterfield Inlet to the Arctic coast, along the coast to the 
Coppermine River, returning to civilisation by the Great Bear Lake and 
the Mackenzie River. For daring and for extent this journey is almost 
unparalleled in the whole history of Arctic exploration. 

Hanbury found copper float on the banks of the Coppermine River, 
but like Thomas Simpson his attention was chiefly attracted by the abund- 
ance of copper he found on the islands in Bathurst Inlet. He leaves the 
question of their commercial value to be decided by expert opinion. 



II 



BY SCOW AND STEAMER. DOWN THE ATHABASCA AND MACKENZIE RIVERS 

THE object of the present unostentatious expedition was to make a 
preliminary investigation of the Coppermine Mountains; to deter- 
mine whether there was any analogy between these deposits and 
those of the Lake Superior district, and to decide whether the prospect was 
sufficiently promising to warrant investigation on a further and more 
comprehensive scale. 

We considered that the success of this expedition would be best ensured 
by keeping the party as small and as efficient as possible. Three of us were 
indispensable; provided we could have got the right kind of man, we would 
have preferred four in the party. But the qualifications required in a fourth 
member were somewhat exacting, and the time at our disposal for choosing 
was short. We left civilisation decided to carry the work through with three 
men only. As will be shown, a fourth member did in fact join us eventually 
and at a time when his assistance was most opportune and valuable. 

Our party consisted of : 

August Sandberg,Ph.D., of Sweden; chemist, metallurgist, and geologist. 
His travels in the remoter parts of Mexico had made him well acquainted 
with pack animals and life on the trail. He lacked training as a canoeist, 
but two canoeists were enough in the party and three might have been too 
many. His wide knowledge, his energy, his modesty, and his conspicuous 
unselfishness contributed greatly to the success and pleasure of the whole 
expedition. 

6 



Down tbe Htbabasca anb flDachen3ie IRtvers 7 

Lionel Dale Douglas, Lieut. R.N.R., a Canadian, sailor by profession, 
and with all the resourcefulness and ability to make the best of things by 
which sea-going men are. justly distinguished. He was well versed in the 
handling of small craft, a canoeist of exceptional skill, an indefatigable 
hunter and sure shot with a rifle under all conditions. 

George Mellis Douglas, a Canadian by birth, parentage, and early 
training; an engineer by profession, and by chance more than by any 
special qualification the leader of the present expedition. 

We had decided that the best route to the Coppermine Mountains 
would be via the Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers, the Bear River, 
and Great Bear Lake, and thence by the Dease River and the small lakes 
on the divide to the Coppermine River. This was the route followed by 
the earlier explorers on their journeys to the shores of the Arctic : by Simp- 
son in 1838-39; by Sir John Richardson homeward bound from his explora- 
tion of the coast between the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers in 1827, 
and again twenty years later by the same explorer when he was returning 
from his search for Franklin. 

Fort Norman, at the junction of the Bear River with the Mac- 
kenzie River, was to be our real starting point on our own responsibility. 
We had made provision to have our freight taken and to travel as passengers 
ourselves by the Hudson Bay Co.'s transports to that point. 

Our plans for ascending the Dease River and crossing to the Copper- 
mine River by way of the Dismal Lakes and Kendall River by canoe had 
been carefully thought out before we started, but they were quite indefinite 
regarding the crossing of Great Bear Lake and as to where we should pass 
the winter. We anticipated that the best plan would be to get a boat 
large enough to carry our entire equipment; to track it up the Bear 
River to Great Bear Lake, and to establish our own winter quarters on the 
Dease River. But this depended on several uncertain contingencies — on 
finding a suitable boat on our journey down the river ; on being able to have 
it towed to Fort Norman by the Hudson Bay Co.'s steamer, and, finally, 



8 Xanbs iforlorn 

on finding an Indian crew at Fort Norman to help us track it up the 
Bear River. 

Fortunately we were able to effect these combinations; had it been 
otherwise we would have made the journey by canoe all the way from 
Fort Norman, returned to that place in the autumn to spend the winter, 
and made an early start by dog sledge the following spring. 

In one respect our little expedition differed from any other that has 
been made overland to the Central Arctic coast of North America. We 
had decided to be absolutely independent of native help, excepting only 
such aid as would be necessary to track our boats up the Bear River to 
Great Bear Lake. We had determined to be our own guides, hunters, and 
packers, and successfully carried out our purpose. 

The Indians of the Mackenzie River valley have earned a most unen- 
viable character for thorough unreliability and inefficiency. All travellers 
who have accomplished anything agree in describing them as worthless, 
shiftless, careless, unreliable, and generally contemptible. 

Protracted residence in the country and a fuller experience of the 
Indians may disclose good points in their character, and mitigating reasons 
for the bad ones, but protracted residence in that country also lowers stand- 
ards of reliability and efficiency and warps accuracy of judgment. There- 
fore it happens that the opinion of the man who has been longest in the 
country and who should know the Indians best must be received with 
especial reserve and caution. 

It was advisable to go fully supplied with food for the total time we 
expected to be in the country, although we knew that the vicinity of the 
Dease River is fairly well supplied with caribou, and ptarmigan, and that 
fish abound in Great Bear Lake. The Indians have proved that one can 
live off the country, but it keeps them busy hunting and fishing from one 
year's end to another, ever following the movements of the game. They 
do not always succeed in living very sumptuously, and sometimes even 
not at all. For though the population of Great Bear Lake country does 
not exceed more than one person per five hundred square miles at a most 



©own tbe Htbabasca anb fll>acfcen3ie IRivers 9 

sanguine estimate, even this scanty population is occasionally reduced to 
starvation. 

We might have kept ourselves alive, but this would have taken all 
our time ; and the movements of the game would not take us into that part 
of the country we wanted most to see. We expected anyway to eke out 
our supplies and knew that at times we would have to depend to a certain 
extent on successful hunting. 

The calculations of supplies and their weights, the necessity for careful 
choice of equipment, and proving every detail of it, the worries caused by 
various delays, and most of all by one's own carelessness and forgetfulness — • 
these things have been described so often by explorers that they may well 
be omitted here. Our equipment was perfect of its kind and proved so 
satisfactory in every respect that the actual experience of the trip showed 
scarcely anything that could be altered for the better, though we erred in 
taking an unnecessarily large quantity of certain supplies. We took nothing 
in the way of toboggans, show-shoes, or fur clothing, as we had been told 
by many acquainted with the Hudson Bay Co.'s posts on the Slave and 
Mackenzie rivers that those things could be got better in the country. 
This is quite wrong, such things can be had much better in civilisation. 
It was one of many instances to show how unreliable the advice may be 
of men who have been a long time in that country, and their commonly 
curious failure to appreciate the importance of time. We might, no doubt, 
have got together a good equipment for winter work if we had lived for a 
year at one of the posts before starting out and hired Indians to make snow- 
shoes, toboggans, and to bring in dressed moose and caribou skins for mocca- 
sins and fur clothing, etc. By ransacking every post on our journey from 
the Athabasca to Fort Norman, we did in fact get together a sort of equip- 
ment for winter, picking up an old toboggan here, some snow-shoes there, 
a capote and some moccasins at this post, some dressed caribou and moose 
hides at that. For although these things are the commonest necessities 
of life in that country, they are seldom obtainable when wanted offhand; 
the Indians make them only when they are actually required. After fuller 



10 



Xanbs tforlorn 



experience and a more thorough realisation of the desperately hand-to- 
mouth way everything is done and provided for in the north, we had reason 
to consider ourselves lucky in getting together even this poor collection of 
essentials for our winter life. 

Of our journey down the Athabasca and Mackenzie rivers I can give 



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The First Voyage of the Aldebaran 

only a bare outline. To do it justice the subject would require a book to 
itself. It has already been described, and excellently well. l 

We arrived at Edmonton on May II, 191 1. According to advices 
received from the Hudson Bay Co. the northern brigade of scows, by which 



1 Among many other good accounts of a journey down these rivers Agnes Dean Cameron's 
The New North gives an excellent idea of the country. 



Down tbe Htbabasca ant) flDacfcen3ie IRivers 



ii 



we were to travel, was due to leave Athabasca Landing the first week 
in June. Part of our equipment, including our two canoes Polaris and 
Procyon, and the more important part of our food supplies, had 
already been forwarded; our clothing, bedding, tents, arms, instru- 
ments, and ammunition we had with us; and the bulk of our food sup- 




The Athabasca Stage 



plies, hardware, etc., we intended to get at Edmonton. We were 
doing this in a leisurely way when, on May 17th, we were surprised by 
a telegram from the Hudson Bay Co.'s manager, who had just made a 
trip to Athabasca Landing, informing us that the brigade had already 
left, but that we might still overtake them by canoe at Grand Rapids, 
150 miles down the river. Our canoes had gone with the scows, but the 
manager had kindly arranged that a large canoe should be ready for us 



12 Xante Jforlorn 

at the Landing, expecting us to come by the next stage, arriving there on 
May 24th. 

This spurred us to quick action. We had already added another 




On the Road to Athabasca Landing 

large canoe to our fleet, and on May 19th, we loaded all our stuff on two 
waggons, putting our latest addition, the Aldebaran, on top of one of the 
loads, and saw them start, fervently hoping that we might not see them 
again till we got to Athabasca Landing. 

On May 23d, we ourselves left by stage; this was not a single vehicle, 



©own tbe Htbabasca anb flDacfcen3ie IRivere 



13 



but a regular convoy of waggons, and we numbered about twenty-five 
passengers all told. 

Our own little party had been joined by Robert Service, who was mak- 
ing a journey to the North with the Hudson Bay Co.'s transport, and who, 




'Eggie's 



like ourselves, had been surprised by the unexpectedly early departure of 
the brigade. 

From Edmonton to Athabasca Landing is a distance of about one 
hundred miles, and the stage makes the journey in two days. On this 
occasion the roads were in fairly good shape, but plenty of evidence existed 
to show what they might be in bad weather. The first thirty miles of the 
journey is not an interesting country to travel through ; it is a level, rich soil, 
with poplars and willows as the only trees. The country then becomes 



14 



lanbs Jforlorn 



undulating with forests of spruce and jack pine, and some very pretty lakes. 
The land is being rapidly cleared and settled. At some of the settlers' 
homes we stopped for meals, and spent the night comfortably enough at 
a prosperous-looking farmhouse, delightfully situated. The next day's 




Good-bye to Civilisation 



journey took us over hilly country with worse roads. We passed a number 
of freighters stuck in mud-holes and one unfortunately rash automobile 
buried in black slime till it looked like some kind of a boat. We never 
knew in what plight we might overtake our own outfit, so were more ready 
in our sympathy than we might otherwise have been, but we finally rattled 
down the long hill into the Landing to find everything had arrived and all 
in good shape. 

Athabasca Landing is a pretty little town situated at the top of a 



Wovon tbe Htbabasca anb flDacften3ie Vxvcve 



15 



big horseshoe bend made by the Athabasca River, an emblem of luck par- 
ticularly appropriate to this place, fortunate beyond most in its situation 
and prospects. 

We were met by the Hudson Bay Co.'s agent at the Landing. He 




I 



On the River below the Athabasca Landing 



entertained us hospitably and relieved our minds regarding our freight 
by assuring us that he could have it forwarded by a brigade of scows taking 
in supplies for the Roman Catholic Missions and about to start under the 
charge of Captain Schott, a famous riverman. These were due to arrive 
at Fort Smith before the Hudson Bay Co.'s steamer left that point. 

A large canoe was ready for us and an Indian to act as guide, at least 
such was the thoughtful intention of the Hudson Bay Co., until we overtook 
the brigade. 



i6 



Xante forlorn 



Next day we spent a frantically busy time. Our outfit had to be 
assembled and the most indispensable things selected to make as big a load 
as possible for two canoes. It meant a lot of worrying work, unpacking, 
repacking, and general readjustment of our stuff, but at last the jobs were 




' Bannock Island ' 



satisfactorily done and the two canoes loaded with about one thousand 
pounds weight in each. The balance we left ready to follow us with Schott's 
Brigade, trusting it would overtake us at Fort Smith. 

The last letters were hurriedly written, and at 6.30 P.M., May 25th, we 
started on our long journey. 

It had been a stormy day with high wind and frequent showers; a 
week of work and worry had culminated in our anxious efforts to-day. 
Now it came out a lovely placid evening, it was a blessed relief to shove 



©own tbe Htbabasca anb flfeacfcensie TRiveve 



17 



out on that smooth swiftly flowing river and to leave all worries behind. 
It was no use to worry about anything now, all we had to do was to meet 
circumstances cheerfully and make the best of them. 

Already we were far enough north to have long days and light nights. 




Calling River 



We kept on till nine that night, when we landed and made the first camp of the 
trip at an ideal spot in a thick grove of spruce. Nor did any of us suffer from 
the sleeplessness that the first night under the open sky sometimes brings. 
Then followed two days of perfect weather and perfect conditions for 
canoeing; a steady, swift current that made paddling unnecessary except 
for the pleasure of it, an ever- varying scenery of lofty forest -covered banks, 
the dark spruce alternating with the bright green of aspen, cottonwood, 
and birch in the first flush of early summer. 



18 



Xante forlorn 



Our guide was a half-breed Cree; he didn't see any fun in paddling. 
He was worse than useless in camp and no good as a guide even if a guide's 
services had been necessary. 

On the evening of the second day we arrived at the Pelican Portage; 




Pelican Portage 



a trader's store and a few log shacks built by Indians stand on a high bank 
overlooking the river. A couple of miles below this are the Pelican Rapids ; 
our guide suddenly got nervous and said it would be necessary to get some 
one to pilot us down these. 

While he was looking for some one at the houses, we investigated an 
old oil well, near the river, that had been drilled by the Canadian Govern- 
ment fifteen years ago. At 800 feet they struck gas, which blew their 
rigging out; this gas has been escaping and burning ever since. The casing 



Wovon the Htbabasca anb flDackeit3ie IRivers 



19 



had been reduced to a lyi" nipple, the gas was under such pressure that it shot 

up six or eight feet before igniting, and threw up a flame twenty-five or thirty 

feet high, burning with a roar that could be heard a couple of miles away. 

Our ' ' guide ' ' couldn't find a man, so we decided to be our own pilots. Lion 




Grand Rapids 



and I led the way with the Aldebaran, but the rapids proved only very swift 
water and easy enough at this high stage of the river ; we made camp below them 
that night . From this point to Grand Rapids the river is very swift , the banks 
become higher and more abrupt, rising several hundred feet, usually in three 
or four well-defined wooded terraces divided by bluffs of sandstone and shale. 
We reached Grand Rapids early in the afternoon of the third day ; our 
average speed from Athabasca Landing had been about nine miles per 
hour, which gives some idea of the swiftness of the stream. 



20 



Xan&s forlorn 



The Hudson Bay Co.'s brigade were still there camped on the island; 
the officers welcomed us as though we were long expected friends rather 
than more possibilities of trouble in the shape of passengers. 

At Grand Rapids the river is divided by an island into two channels 




The Lower End of the Island at Grand Rapids 



nearly half a mile long, and in that distance the river makes a drop of about 
forty feet. The west branch is the main channel and the water rushes down 
that side in a terrific swirl. The scows land their loads at the head of the 
island and are run or lowered empty down the easier eastern channel and 
then hauled in to the lower end of the island to receive their cargoes again, 
which are carried over the island on a primitive wooden tramway. 

The scows are built of i" spruce, they are about 55 ft. long by 12 ft. 
beam and 3 ft. deep. They carry a load of about seven tons and are 



2>ov*m tbe Htbabasca an& flDacfeeit3te TRvocvb 



21 



manned by a crew of five or six men. A large steering sweep, nearly as 

long as the scow itself, is their most characteristic feature. I measured one 

sweep forty-seven feet long and saw others that may have been even longer. 

The brigade consisted of some twenty-two or twenty-four scows and 




Scow Leaving the Island 



a cook scow. There were about a dozen passengers including ourselves. 
Among them were two men sent by the Canadian Government to establish 
an experimental farm at Fort Simpson, who were taking their wives and 
families with them. 

Only a few more scows remained to be run down the rapids; and a 
couple of days after our arrival we began the next stage of our journey. 

From Grand Rapids to Fort McMurray is a distance of ninety miles, 
the river is very swift with nine or ten larger rapids. The scows can run all 




22 



The Athabasca Brigade 



Down tbe Htbabasca anb flDacftett3ie IRivers 



23 



these but two, at which they have to be lightened and most of their cargo 
portaged. 

It was a mode of travelling delightfully novel and interesting; a leis- 
urely progress with frequent stops for meals or for adverse winds. A 




The Cascade Rapids 



very slight head wind was sufficient excuse to stop, in fact anything or 
nothing at all would bring the whole fleet to tie up along the bank for a 
" spell." 

Nominally the brigade was under the charge of a captain, but its 
movements were in fact regulated by the whims of the Indian pilots, and 
we went ahead or stopped — mostly stopped — according to their inclina- 
tion. Our voyage from Grand Rapids to McMurray took a week; this 
means that we were actually under way about two hours per day; it was a 



24 Xante forlorn 

series of resting spells with short interludes of progress. But no one worried, 
to-morrow was as good as to-day, the weather was fine and bright, the 
scenery beautiful, and grub plentiful. The Indian crew had four, sometimes 
five, meals a day; the Hudson Bay officers and the passengers had three. 




Cook Scow Running the Cascade 

These meals were all at different hours, so the crew of the cook scow worked 
hardest of the whole outfit. 

Moose and bears were seen occasionally as we drifted down the river; 
there were usually at least two or three rifles on each scow and the ensuing 
fusillade would do credit to a small battle. The apparent object of every 
Indian who had a rifle was to empty the magazine as quickly as possible, 
the range or even the visibility of the game had nothing to do with his 
shooting; if he only heard it crashing through the woods he would fire at 



Down tbe atbabasca an& fll>acfcen3ie IRivers 



25 



the noise. The Indian may be a good hunter when he is alone, but 
when a bunch of them are together any game is fairly secure against 
damage. 

We usually stopped for the night about 5.30 p.m. When there was 




At the Cascade Rapids 



any choice the Indians showed a lack of discrimination in choosing good 
camping places that was quite in character with their haphazard methods. 
From long custom one place was as good as another to them; when they 
felt like camping they camped, a better place three hundred yards farther 
on was nothing to their inclination. 

Our scow journey was altogether thoroughly enjoyable; it was almost 
a matter of regret when we finally reached Fort Mc Murray. This was 
our first experience of a fur trading post, though it was then making its 



26 



Xanbs forlorn 



last appearance in that character and probably will soon be completely 
swamped by civilisation. 

It is the centre of an area thought by many to be rich in oil, though 
the vast extent and depth of the famous Athabasca "tar sands" may be 
merely the remains of a once great oil field now uplifted and drained. 




On Board the Scow 



The Hudson Bay Co.'s steamer Grahame, by which we were to make the 
next stage of our journey, was awaiting us and we took up our quarters 
on board at once. The Grahame is the usual type of the shallow draught 
stern wheeler common on western rivers. She was a comfortable home, and 
nothing could be more pleasant than the truly hospitable and courteous 
way in which we were welcomed on board. 

Fort McMurray is beautifully situated on a level point of land between 
the Athabasca and Clearwater rivers. It consists merely of a few log 
houses, a small store run by the Hudson Bay Co., and another by a Miss 
Gordon. 



'Bovon tbe Htbabasca anb flDacfcen3ie TRmxe 



27 



A crowd of Indians were camped on the point awaiting the arrival of the 
transports and the treaty-paying party. Here we made our first acquaint- 
ance with the dogs of the North; big, suspicious, hungry- looking brutes, 
with characteristically large strong feet. It was the idle time of the year 





The Descent of the Athabasca River 



for them, but they were none the happier on that account. They suffered 
from the heat, from flies, and above all from hunger; their food had been 
cut down to just about enough to keep them alive. Every teepee had three 
or four dogs stretched out in the coolest place or prowling around looking 
for something to chew, or else the chance of a fight. But everything chew- 
able was hung out of their reach on tripods made of saplings, fights were 
much easier than food for them to find, and apparently what they enjoyed 
next best. 



28 Xante forlorn 

In some respects the next stage of our journey may have been more 
comfortable than the voyage on the scows; certainly it was far less novel 
and picturesque. To exchange a bed of boughs in the open for a small and 
usually stuffy cabin was of doubtful benefit, but this was offset by the corn- 



Fort McMurray 

fortable saloon for meals, instead of the cramped table on the cook scow, 
where you sat on a sack of pork with the grease oozing through it, and 
thought yourself lucky if you could find room for your feet in a half empty 
sugar barrel under the table. I do not mention these small incidents of 
scow travel to illustrate its picturesqueness, but their novelty at least is 
undeniable ! 

We left Fort McMurray again a few days after our arrival. Below 
that post the river is still fairly swift, flowing through an alluvial plain with 



2)own tbe Htbabasca anb flDacften3ie IRivers 



29 



heavy forests of spruce, birch, poplar, and cotton wood. As the river 
approaches Lake Athabasca the shores become lower and the woods change 
in character until they are mere forests of willow covering low swampy 
ground. The nights were scarcely light enough as yet to permit travelling 




A Trading Store at Fort McMurray 



all the time; we usually tied up about 10 p.m. and started again at two in 
the morning. 

The chief event of the voyage was our arrival and few days' stay at 
Fort Chipewyan. This was really our first acquaintance with a Hudson 
Bay Co.'s post, Fort McMurray scarcely counted. Fort Chipewyan is 
among the oldest and still one of the most important of all the fur trading 
posts in the North. It is also one of the most striking in appearance and 
situation; the Hudson Bay Co.'s buildings are dignified and harmonious; 



30 



Xante forlorn 



they occupy a rocky point at the eastern extremity of the settlement. 
At the western end is the large Roman Catholic Mission. Between 
them a row of houses faces the lake. All the buildings are made of 
squared timber and all are whitewashed. With its background of forest- 




The Hudson Bay Co.'s steamer Grahame 



covered rounded and rocky hills the post makes a picturesque and pleasing 
appearance. 

It is indeed a lovely spot in summer with the spruce-covered rocky 
islands in front and the great expanse of lake to the east, wonderfully 
beautiful in its constantly changing aspect. For at this time of 
the year the air is considerably warmer than the water ; there is great 
refraction and all kinds of wonderful mirages; every minute makes some 
new and curious change in the appearance of the lake, and the distant 



Down tbe atbabasca anb flDacftert3ie IRivers 



31 




The Hudson Bay Co.'s Store at Fort McMurray 







* ^^TifffflTrn * T fit TMr^riwYilfr 

\ H* **m w^Xwam^m 


f _/ ^-J^K^t X/-V 




K . ■ , 4 


*..>'.-■■ •*.,.: . ...-.■■■■■- ■ .•*...■ ._.'- 



Idle Days 



32 



Xanbs Jforlorn 



shore lines take all manner of appearances, or sometimes disappear 
entirely. 

Fort Chipewyan was founded by the North-west Trading Co. in the 
latter part of the eighteenth century ; it is of historical interest as the base 




The Clearwater River 



and starting point of most of the famous explorers in the early part of the 
nineteenth century. It was an important post before Fort Dearborn was 
founded, and probably appeared very much the same to Sir John Franklin 
in 1820 as^it does to us; equally little change has taken place in the 
general life and character of the Indians; the descriptions given by Frank- 
lin, Richardson, and Back apply to-day. Time has dealt gently indeed 
with it, the islands are as inviting, the lake lovely as ever in its constant 
changes, and the skies show the same ineffable serenity, while Fort' Dear- 




The Grahame Tied up for the Night 



33 



34 



Xan&s Jforlorn 



born has changed in name and nature. Who shall say the change is for 
the better? 

We left Fort Chipewyan on June 13th. The scenery on the Rocher 
and Slave rivers from Athabasca Lake to Smith's Landing is in some re- 




The Hudson Bay Co.'s Buildings at Fort Chipewyan 



spects the most beautiful of all that long voyage; rocky shores alternate 
with alluvial banks, and there are many picturesque islands. 

Our arrival at Smith's Landing, the northern limit of the Grahame's 
voyage, seemed a matter of most complete unconcern to the inhabitants of 
that pretty little village. We had been there some time before any one 
showed enough interest to come to the steamer, even the very dogs treated 
us with a chilling indifference. 

From this point to Fort Smith, a distance of sixteen miles, the river 



Down the Htbabasca ant> flDacfcen3ie IRtvers 



35 



is a succession of rapids; we estimated a drop of about 125 ft. in that 
distance. Some of these rapids are of a very formidable description; 
at the Cassette Rapids the river is about three-quarters of a mile wide 
and the rapids are a most impressive sight. 




The Roman Catholic Mission at Fort Chipewyan 



We spent several days at Smith's Landing, and saw the balance of 
our supplies, which we had left at Athabasca Landing, arrive safely by 
the Roman Catholic Mission steamer. 

Most of the freight is taken over by waggon, some of it is run down 
in scows, which make portages at the worst places. We saw all our stuff, 
including our canoes, despatched by waggon, then walked across ourselves ; 
the road is a pretty one through dense woods of small timber and for the 
most part over level sandy ground, though there are some bad marshy 




36 



Coming from the Nets 



2>own tbe Htbabasca anfc fll>acken3ie IRivere 



37 



stretches. For mosquitoes and flies Fort Smith is probably the worst place 
in all the world; a fine view of the river is about its only other claim to 
distinction. The road is practically level from Smith's Landing to Fort 
Smith, but while the Landing is at the water's edge, the Fort is about 130 




The Eastern Part of Fort Chipewyan 



ft. above it, built on a level sandy plain which ends abruptly in a steep 
bank. The constant erosion of the river continually undermines this sandy 
bank and causes tremendous land slides; in some places acres of the plain 
have slid away and by its subsidence whole forests of trees will be reduced 
to strange and unnatural angles. 

The Hudson Bay Co.'s steamer Mackenzie River was tied up at the 
river bank and we were welcomed on board by the genial Captain C. S. 
Mills. This steamer was our home for the next three weeks, a comfortable 



38 



Xanbs jforlorn 



well-appointed boat and her captain a truly courteous and obliging host, 
whose versatility and great experience of the North made him an uncom- 
monly interesting companion. The Mackenzie River had been built to 
Captain Mills' design and under his superintendence, a difficult task in a 




The Outskirts of Fort Chipewyan 



place so inaccessible to labour and supplies as Fort Smith. Especially 
does her builder deserve great credit for the design ; which has to meet such 
different conditions as the vast inland sea of Great Slave Lake, requiring 
stability and free board; and the swift, in some places shallow, Mackenzie 
River, making light draught a necessity. 

A fortnight after our arrival at Fort Smith we were ready to proceed, 
the cargo had all been transferred, our own stuff was at last all together, 
and on June 28th we made a start. 



Bovon the Htbabasca anb fIDacheit3ie IRtvers 39 

The nights were now so light that we could run without reference to 
the time. Only stars of the first magnitude had been visible lately and 



"Bull Dogs" on Cabin Window 

then only at midnight. Even to these we now bade farewell ; it was next 
autumn before we saw them again. 

The lower Slave is not an interesting river, it flows through a densely 
forested alluvial plain, the banks are sandy and gradually get lower as 
the Great Slave Lake is approached. 

We reached Fort Providence the second day ; this is a small village 
of log houses built on the flat shore of a bay in the lake. It is not 



40 Xante jforlorn 

a pretty place even in summer, and in winter it must be unspeakably 
bleak. 

Fort Resolution is another post well-known as the base of exploring 
expeditions. It was of particular interest to ourselves as the place where 
we succeeded in getting most of our equipment for the winter, including 



Fort Smith 

some rather fine snow-shoes. We had a delightful trip across Great 
Slave Lake, with fine weather all the time. Especially was the clear 
blue water a most pleasant change after the muddy rivers we had been 
descending. 

The post of Hay River, situated near the mouth of the river of that 
name, was our next port of call; we arrived there at 2 a.m. and spent a 
couple of hours only. It is interesting chiefly on account of the Protestant 
Mission, a mission whose methods and organisation deserve the highest 
praise. 



Down tbe Htbabasca anb flDacfcen3ie IRivers 



41 



At noon on July 1st, we entered the Mackenzie River, a noble 
river indeed. Most of the great rivers of the world flow through 
low lying country, for instance the Amazon, the River Plate, and 
the Mississippi. The St. Lawrence is an exception, but the Mackenzie 
is a far more notable one; the scenery below Fort Simpson is in- 




The Hudson Bay Co.'s Steamer Mackenzie River at Fort Smith 



comparably grand, a mighty river flowing among mighty mountains. 

Fort Simpson was our principal port of call on the Mackenzie River, 
though it is of far less importance now than some years ago when it was 
the chief post and headquarters of the Hudson Bay Co. for the Mackenzie 
River district. There is a general air of listlessness, decay, and departed 
greatness about the place. 

The post is situated on a very fertile island at the junction of the Liard 
with the Mackenzie River. The farming outfit was landed at this point 
to begin their experimental work. Such results as they may obtain will be 



42 



Xante ]forlorn 



of value only as far as that small alluvial island is concerned. It would be 
entirely misleading to apply them to the surrounding country, which is 
quite different in character, and even a few miles away from the river, 
in climate also. 




On the Lower Slave River 



Part of the farm outfit had been loaded on a York boat and was 
towed from Fort Smith by the steamer. We decided to buy this York 
boat and Captain Mills consented to tow it the rest of the way to Fort 
Norman for us. It was thus that the "Jupiter" as we called her came 
into our possession; we had looked on her as a possibility ever since we 
first saw her hauled up on the beach at Fort Smith. She was simply a 
big open boat over 50 ft. long and J 2 ft. beam amidships, ^Yi ft. deep, 
very straight in her lines. Such primitive rigging as we wanted we were 



Down tbe Btbabasca anfc flDacfcen3ie IRivers 



43 



able to get here; we made a sail out of an old scow tarpaulin 18 ft. 
by 22 ft. We also bought the floor of an old house that had been 
pulled down and two small windows; these were very valuable to us 
later on. The picture shows the Jupiter loaded up with the farm outfit. 
The canoe in the foreground is the Radford Expedition starting on their 




Fort Resolution 



trip which had such a fatal ending. The man in the bow is Radford and 
Street is in the stern. 

Our pleasant voyage came to an end only too quickly. Fort Wrigley 
was the last port before arriving at our own destination; this is merely a 
few small log shacks and a diminutive chapel. 

On our arrival at this place we learned some rather gruesome news. 
Two white men had brought in a small outfit and had built a shack 
on the Salt River, a point about a hundred miles below Fort Wrigley 
where they had spent the winter trapping. An Indian passing the place 
about a month previous had found them both dead in their shack. Every- 



44 Xanbs Jforlorn 

thing had been left strictly undisturbed until the arrival of the North-west 
Mounted Police Inspector on the steamer, so that a proper investigation 
could be made. 

We left Fort Wrigley in the forenoon and arrived at the Salt River 
that same evening. The trappers had chosen a very pretty spot for their 




Fort Simpson 

shack, with a fine view up the Salt River and across the Mackenzie. It was 
the usual small log cabin about 12 ft. by 14 ft. The men lay dead in their 
bunks, one with his head a shapeless mass, blown out of all resemblance to 
anything human by a soft point bullet from a high power rifle. On a 
small table beside the bunks lay a dirty note-book and a bottle containing 
a little carbolic acid. 

The stench was insufferable, worse than any other form of decompos- 
ing animal matter, and blended with it was the peculiarly acrid smell of old 
smoke from spruce fires. One could remain in that loathsome atmosphere 



'Bovon tbe Htbabasca anb flDacken3ie IRivers 



45 



only a few minutes at a time; the bodies were in a state of decom- 
position so advanced that it was necessary to break the bunks down 
and carry them out as they lay. Close to the house on that pleasant 
point we buried them both in one grave, dug as deep as the frozen ground 
permitted. 




The Radford Expedition. The Jupiter in the Background 



In the note-book we were able to make out the following message 
written on different pages and evidently at different times. 

"Cruel treatment drove me to kill Peat. Everything is wrong 
he never paid one sent ship everything out pay George Walker $10. 
... I have been sick a long time I am not Crasey, but sutnly goded 
to death he thot i had more money than i had and has been trying 
to find it. 

"I tried to get him to go after medison but Cod not he wanted me 
to die first so good by." 



4 6 



Xanbs jforlorn 



"I have just killed the man that was killing me so good by and may- 
god bless you all I am ofle weak bin down since the last of March so thare 
hant no but Death for me." 

He had shot the other man and then probably ended his own life by 
a dose of carbolic acid. 






Trappers' Shack on the Salt River 



Behind the shack, farther up on the hillside, was a small log store- 
house; there were a few sacks of flour inside and a fine collection of furs 
that had been accumulated by these men on their winter's trapping. We 
took them, and the rifles, and such evidence as there was and held an 
enquiry at once as we proceeded down stream. 

It was late by the time this was finished, and after that the purser 
and I had another and more complicated job getting our accounts 
straightened out. 

Twilight was giving way to bright day by the time we had finished, 



2)own tbe Htbabasca anb flDacfcen3ie IRivers 



47 



the lofty Bear Rock below Fort Norman was already visible, clear and 
pure in the morning sun. But the night had been a harassing one, and we 
would need all the energy possible this day ; close as we were to our journey's 
end we turned in to take what sleep we could. 




The Finish of their Long Winter 



Ill 



THE VOYAGE OF THE JUPITER — THE BEAR RIVER AND GREAT BEAR 

LAKE 

SELDOM in my life have I heard a sound so unwelcome as the fore- 
boding scream of the whistle that jarred me out of the first beginning 
of a heavy sleep. We had arrived at Fort Norman; it was 2.30 a.m., 
that hour when one's courage is at the lowest ebb. The Hudson Bay Co. 
with their kindly help could do no more for us ; the time had come for us 
to shoulder our own responsibilities, and to bid our kind hosts and pleasant 
travelling companions farewell. 

The steamer stopped at Fort Norman for only a few hours, our stuff 
was dumped out on the beach, the canoes landed, the Jupiter cast loose, 
and the Mackenzie River stood out in the stream again and was soon lost 
to sight on her long voyage still farther north. 

We were on an exposed shore, the first job was to get the Jupiter in 
a fit state to put our stuff aboard. Since leaving Fort Resolution she had 
been the home of a team of dogs and was in a condition indescribably filthy ; 
it took several hours' hard work scrubbing, swabbing, and baling to get her 
reasonably clean and then we loaded all our stuff on board. It was after- 
noon before we finished; we had been toiling all clay in a hot sun, not even 
taking time for lunch; tormented by flies, and almost overpowered by the 
smell of our new home. For though I said reasonably clean, that was 
merely to the eye; the smell didn't evaporate for hours. The last twenty- 
four hours had been a succession of bad smells. At last we got everything 

48 



Zhe Bear Wivev anb Great Bear Xafte 



49 



loaded and tracked the Jupiter to a sheltered spot about half a mile up the 
Bear River; only then were we at liberty to make an acquaintance with 
Fort Norman. 

The post is the usual small village of log shacks; a small store run by 




The Beach at Fort Norman 



the Hudson Bay Co. and another by the Northern Trading Co. There 
is a Roman Catholic Church and Mission, also a small Protestant Church. 
The latter was out of commission and shut up when we were there. The 
post is beautifully situated on a point between the Bear and Macken- 
zie rivers, and the outlook is very fine. In front is the great Mackenzie 
River, and far beyond it the distant Rocky Mountains; to the north is the 
lofty Bear Rock with its variegated colours. 

We made the acquaintance of Mr. Leon Gaudet, the Hudson Bay 



50 



Xanbs fforlorn 



Co.'s factor, and of Hornby and Melville, two Englishmen who had been 
several years on Great Bear Lake hunting and attempting to trade with the 
few Indians who live in that desolate country. They had spent the last 
winter near old Fort Confidence in Dease Bay, where they had built a 




Main Street, Fort Norman 



small house. Melville was on his way out to civilisation again, Hornby 
had decided to spend another year in the country. The preceding summer 
they had met the Eskimos from Coronation Gulf, the last remaining primi- 
tive people on the continent quite untouched by civilisation and still 
living in their primitive way. These Eskimos, who have lately been made 
famous by a sensational title, come inland in the summer from Coronation 
Gulf and the lands farther north to hunt caribou and get wood for sleighs, 
etc. Hornby and Melville had met them on the edge of the Barrens to 



Gbe Bear 1Rh>er anb (Breat Bear Xafee 



51 



the north-east of Great Bear Lake. The Roman Catholic Mission had 
decided to send one of their fathers to get in touch with these Eskimos 
and attempt their conversion. Father Rouvier, O.M.I. , had been well 
chosen for this hazardous undertaking; and Hornby, who wanted to do 




Mackenzie River and the Bear Rock from Fort Norman 



some fur trading with them, had arranged to accompany him on his 
journey. 

We learned also that Mr. J. Hodgson, a retired Hudson Bay Co.'s 
factor and his family, had also spent the preceding winter on Dease River, 
trapping and hunting caribou. They were to leave Dease River as soon 
as the ice in the lake broke up, returning in a York boat left there by Hornby 
and Melville, and we thought it possible that we might meet them on their 
way home. 



52 



lan&0 jforlorn 



Our first concern was to get together an Indian crew to track our boat 
up the Bear River. Most of the Bear Lake Indians were at the post and 
would soon be going up the river again to their hunting grounds on the 
lake. By the aid of the Hudson Bay interpreter we negotiated with these 




The Bear Rock from our Camp 



people, but could not induce them to undertake the job. Besides a large 
number of birch canoes they had a small York boat that they had obtained 
from the Hudson Bay Co., and their own outfit probably required all hands. 
Even the offer of our York boat as soon as we got our stuff across the lake 
did not tempt them, "for that" they said "cannot be divided among us, 
only one man can own it." Another specific objection was the pants we 
wore; innocent Duxbak pants, but they saw an unfortunate likeness to the 
uniform canvas pants worn by the R. N. W. M. P., and they didn't want 



Gbe Bear TRtver anb (Sreat Bear Xafte 



53 



any of them in their country. For several days we treated, entreated, and 
negotiated with these people and under the disadvantage of having to 
carry it on through an interpreter, but there was nothing doing. Mean- 
time we had a fairly comfortable camp at the place where we had taken 




The Jupiter at Fort Norman 



the Jupiter. The water of the Bear River is brilliantly clear and was then 
at a temperature not far from the freezing point. Hornby and Melville 
were camped on the point between us and the post, a place that became 
familiar enough to ourselves more than a year later. 

It was an irksome and exceedingly trying time; we were impatient 
to start on our voyage, but it looked for a while as though the Jupiter 
would get no farther than her present anchorage. We even began prepa- 
rations for making the journey by canoe, when by the exertion of consider- 



54 



Uanbe tforlorn 



able trouble and personal influence, and the offer of high wages, Mr. Gaudet 
succeeded in getting together a crew of local Indians for us. 

Six men were all he could get ; including ourselves this made a short- 
handed crew to track a York boat up that swift river, but our load was 




Lion and the Doctor 



fortunately not a heavy one for the size of the boat ; we had 3 J^ tons of stuff 
all told, and the Jupiter drew about eighteen inches of water. Four or 
five inches of this was keel, and a confounded nuisance that keel was to 
us before we got to Bear Lake, and very little use after, except perhaps 
that it afforded extra strength to our ship on one occasion when it was 
badly needed. 

Saturday, July 8th, was the day fixed for our start. We decided to 
leave the Procyon, one of our canoes, at Fort Norman, as it might be neces- 



Gbe Bear IRiper anb (Breat Bear Xafce 



55 



sary for us to leave the country by way of the Porcupine and Yukon Rivers. 
We saw her safely bestowed in the care of the Hudson Bay Co., said good- 
bye to our friends at the post, and returned to our ship to await the crew. 
By 3 p.m. they showed up in a big birch canoe that they brought to return 




Our Indian Crew 



to Fort Norman in when we got to Bear Lake. Their names, or at least 
the names by which we knew them, were Lixie Trindle, Clement, Samuel, 
David Wright, Horatio, and Francois. Lixie Trindle was the only one who 
knew a little English. He was the captain of the outfit till we got to Bear 
Lake, and although he had not been given a particularly good reputation 
we found him a reliable and a hard worker. Samuel was the humourist 
of the party; he had a broad heavy face with a singularly fatuous expres- 
sion. We never knew what his jokes were about, probably they were at 



56 



Xanbs 3forIorn 



our own expense. Francois was a small well-built man, very strong, very- 
quiet, and a hard worker so long as he had an example. He had his wife, 
a little girl, and one dog with him, and he wanted to cross Great Bear Lake, 
with us, and to work for us a couple of months, which was convenient 




We Make a Start 



enough. His wife could talk a little French and was afterwards the only 
medium by which we could communicate with the Indians. The rest of 
the Indians were quiet, hard-working men, and though we were short handed 
we certainly made up for it in the quality of our crew. The opinion we 
had formed of the Northern Indians, generally, was certainly improved by 
our small personal experience with these men. But they were no doubt 
better than the average Indians; moreover the character of the work, a 
short severe effort with the end in plain view a few days ahead suited 



Cbe Bear IRiver anb (Sreat Bear Xafce 



57 



them better than a long trial with its end indefinite, and requiring persist- 
ence and steadiness of purpose. 

The first thing our crew did was to start a fire, put on the kettle, and 
settle down to a good square meal and a smoke. Then the grand start was 




Banks of the Bear River 



made at last ; we shoved across the river to the north shore and were soon 
under way in harness. 

Lixie took the big steering sweep ; this was his job all the way up the 
river. At this part of it four men on the tracking line were enough, and 
we took " spells" on the boat. Lion and I were among the idlers at first 
and the Doctor was on the line. 

It was a dull cloudy day but pleasant enough sitting in the boat watch- 
ing the shore slip past and feeling that we had got fairly started on our 



58 Uanbs Jforlorn 

voyage. The great rise of water and the breaking up of the ice in spring 
keep the banks clear of trees. For the first forty miles the shores of the 
river are generally pleasant grass-covered slopes, at that season profuse in 
all kinds of flowers; roses, violets, nreweed, wild onions, and all in bloom at 




Bear River — The Franklin Mountains 

the same time. Behind and above was the unbroken spruce forest, much 
denser and the trees much taller than I expected to find them here. 
Altogether it is a most beautiful river with its brilliantly clear water, its 
charming banks, and the fine views of mountains in the background ; Bear 
Rock was then behind us to the west, and the Franklin Mountains to the 
east ahead of us. 

The river is very swift and generally shallow; except near the mouth 
where the river bottom is limestone, and at the head of the rapids, we saw 
no rocks in place ; it is all gravel, or gravel and boulders. 



£be Bear IRiver anb (Sreat Bear Xafce 



59 



The gravel bars and shallow places soon began to give us trouble; the 
Jupiter was frequently ashore, and when this happened it was the duty of 
the crew "resting" aboard to jump into the water and heave her off, no 
pleasant job in that icy stream. Lion and I were pretty lucky in this 




A Camp on the Bear River 



respect, it didn't happen very often to us, but from early experience we 
were handy with a pole and one of us was always on the lookout in 
the bow. 

The Doctor was the first victim, his spell of resting happened to come at 
a bad stretch of the river and he spent it for the most part up to his waist 
in water and his back under the boat struggling to shove her off gravel bars 
or boulders. I wondered at his apparent hardihood and indifference to the 



6o 



Xanbs Jforlorn 



cold, but soon found the explanation of it. A small stream called the Willow- 
River flows into the Bear River about ten miles above its mouth. We 
had noticed this yellow coloured water along the north side, well defined 
from the clear water of the Bear River, but I did not suppose there was more 




Mount Charles 



than 20° Fahr. difference temperature between them! But this condition 
lasted only for the first evening. 

At one stretch it was a hard job to get the boat up at all; I began to 
wonder how long our crew would stand the strain, but I did an injustice 
to their perseverance. To add to our troubles and discomfort it came on 
to rain just before w T e made our first camp below the Willow River; a sloppy 
camp it was, we were soaked through, from both above and below, but 
thanks to the abundance of dead dry spruce one always finds in these north- 



Gbe Bear TOver ant) Great Bear lake 



61 



era woods, we soon had a big fire blazing and a good supper of 
bannock, bacon, and tea. We put up one of our canoe tents that 
night, it was a tight fit for three of us; the Indians made shift with 
their mosquito bars and a tarpaulin. It rained heavily during the night. 




Ice Field below the Rapids 



Next day things looked more cheerful, the weather cleared up, 
the conditions for tracking were better, and we made good progress on 
our way up the river. It usually took about an hour and a half 
to get breakfast and break camp in the morning. We were under way 
at 7.30 a.m. that day and kept at it till 11 p.m., stopping three times 
for meals and taking turns on the tracking line as before. The banks 
were of the same pleasant character; we walked among grass and flowers 
all day; the mountains ahead gradually got higher and more distinct, 




- 



'<^~j$t* 




Ice Cliffs at the Rapids 
62 



Gbe Bear IRiver atrt> 6reat Bear Xafce 



63 



while behind us the Bear Rock ever diminished and became more and 
more ethereal. 

The surroundings were lovely but the work was hard; a slavish task, 
hauling in harness like a very mule. During one of my ''spells" aboard, 



%-U 





-v^ v 



Along the Ice Cliffs 



I noticed a dead caribou floating near the shore; it had escaped the 
notice of the Indians and my own attention had been called to it by 
the smell. Very thoughtlessly I pointed it out to Lixie; he stopped 
the boat instantly, and the Indians held a grave council over that 
stinking carcass, testing strips of meat and doubtful for a while whether 
they would take it along or not. Finally, to our unmitigated relief, they 
decided not to! 

The mountains ahead of us were a spur of the Rockies called the Frank- 




64 



Wc Camp at the Rapids 



Gbe Bear IRiver anb (Sreat Bear Xafce 



65 



lin Mountains; the Bear River cuts right through them, and the rapids 
are at this point. We camped about ten miles below the mountains 
to-night feeling that we had done a good day's work. 

Next day the navigation was more difficult ; the river is full of islands 




Taking a Spell 



and shallow bars, the current was swifter, and all of us were needed on the 
line, so there were no resting spells for any one. 

By four in the afternoon we came to a great field of ice on the south side 
of the river just below the mountains. We could walk over the top of 
this and track the boat along the edge, but at the rapids themselves the ice 
was piled up in great masses all along the shore, forming a rugged, unbroken 
wall for several miles. The prospect looked bad enough; it was impossible 
to track the boat from the top of those ice cliffs, and a decidedly risky 



66 Uanbs 3forIorn 

proceeding to walk along the bottom of them; but we had no choice in the 
matter, this was the only way we could get on, so we got out our heaviest 
tracking line and made the attempt. 

Sometimes there was a little beach, enough to give us a good foothold, 




The Aldebaran and the Polaris being Tracked up the Rapids 

at other times we had to struggle along up to our thighs in that swift icy 
water with a whirl of rapids on one side and a sheer wall of ice on the other, 
often with precariously balanced overhanging masses of ice above our 
heads. We were too busy desperately hauling on the line to think what 
the consequences might be if any of these threatening pieces gave way 
while we were below. 

We camped that night right alongside the ice in a small cove, a mere 
depression in the line of the cliffs, but it gave a certain amount of protection 



Zbe Bear IRiver anfc (Sreat Bear Xafce 



67 



to the Jupiter, and the wall was sufficiently broken so that we could cut 
steps in the ice and reach the top of the cliffs. 

The Indians passed the night ashore, the rest of us slept on the Jupiter; 
the ice gave us a good protection against the mosquitoes at any rate. 




A Disheartening Prospect. 



We had turned in feeling fairly confident, but when we came to start 
again next morning, we found that our troubles were only beginning. We 
had made scarcely a hundred yards from our camping place, and that only 
by half an hour's hard work, when the water became so swift that we could 
make absolutely no further progress in spite of all our efforts. We decided 
to lighten the Jupiter and track some of the stuff beyond the rapids by 
canoe, so loaded up the Aldebaran with about 1100 lbs. and the Polaris 
with 600. This was all the load they could safely hold in that rough water. 



68 



Xanbs Jforlorn 



Five of the Indians took them up the river, one steering in each canoe, one 
tracking the Polaris and two the Aldebaran. I watched them start with 
much misgiving and anxiety; this day of waiting was the worst of all our 
voyage on the Jupiter. The prospect ahead was very discouraging, and 




The Last Stretch of the Ice Cliffs 



the idleness gave us plenty of time to realise the difficulties and dangers. 
A stretch of unbroken ice wall nearly a mile long still remained to be 
passed; beyond the ice, and as far as we could see, were high cut banks, 
equally forbidding and formidable. The bright breezy day and clear 
blue sky seemed only an additional aggravation ; worst of all was the constant 
roar of the rapids. At four in the afternoon the Indians returned; they 
had taken the canoes safely about four miles up the river, but reported 
the tracking to be very bad. We had a good feed all around, the inevitable 



Gbe Bear TRiver anJ> (Sreat Bear lake 



69 



premiere pas of the North, and then got into harness once more for a supreme 
effort. 

Lightened by nearly a ton of weight (for the canoes as well as the car- 
goes they had taken had been on board) the Jupiter came along easier and 




Cut Banks above the Rapids 



without extreme effort, and we got her up a part of the rapid that had been 
quite impossible before. But we had a hard struggle before we finally 
passed the ice. Then came cut banks with difficult footing; presently, 
and worst of all, several hundred yards of loose sliding rock. The con- 
tinual erosion of the river made this particularly dangerous ; the water is 
deep and swift right to the shore; we had to be most careful of our steps 
not to bring down an avalanche of rock that might sweep us all into the 
stream. The Indians were particularly nervous at this point, and once a 



70 



Xante forlorn 



small slide did take place that pretty nearly demoralised them. But we 
got up safely at last and made camp that night at the place to which the 
Indians had taken the canoes, devoutly thankful that all had gone so well 
and feeling that we had got over one of the worst parts of the journey. 




On the Upper Bear River 



The next day broke fair and tranquil, the whole aspect of the river 
had changed, and we had pleasant grassy banks again and good going. 
It was inexpressibly grateful after the strain of the last two days ; we thought 
tracking almost a positive pleasure that fine bright morning as we swung 
along among the thick grass and flowers with a lively recollection of our 
late experiences among ice and rock slides. But this feeling of elation 
soon wore off under the incessant toil. 

On the afternoon of the third day after leaving the rapids, we sighted 



Gbe Bear IRiver an& (Sreat Bear Xafce 



71 



Great Bear Lake ; never did open water look more welcome to us than that 
calm expanse, wonderfully blue, serenely peaceful. Head winds might 
come, storms or shoals, but here at least there would be no more of that 
incessant slavish hauling. 




Our First View of Great Bear Lake 



The upper stretches of the river had been so swift as to require the 
whole crew on the line all the time; the last two days in particular had been 
very fatiguing. The unusually hard work and hasty indifferent meals 
were telling on us all, and although they had worked beyond our expecta- 
tions, we were getting decidedly tired of the Indian crew and looked forward 
to the better organised way of doing things that we could introduce as 
soon as we got on the lake. 

At last we got to a point where the tracking line could be coiled away. 
We got up the mast and sail in a makeshift manner and stood across the 



72 



Xanfcs forlorn 



end of the bay to Sir John Franklin's " Little Lake" where we knew that 
we would find a good harbour to refit the Jupiter for her voyage across the 
lake. It was on the shore of this lake that Sir John Franklin established 
his winter quarters on his expedition to explore the Arctic coast in 1825-26- 




Entrance to Sir John Franklin's Little Lake 



27 ; the place was named Fort Franklin. Fort Norman, that post so often 
moved, was also located here for several years. It was built on the low 
southern point at the entrance to Little Lake. The houses shown in the 
picture, now inhabited by the Indian, Johnny Sanderson, are probably 
remains of the post. 

It was a fine, sunny afternoon, and we had a light fair wind, a pleasure 
indeed after our late toils to sit at our ease and feel the boat slipping along 
quietly through that clear water. It clouded up from the north, and we 



Gbe Bear IRiver anb (Sreat Bear Xafce 73 

were suddenly struck by a head squall that obliged us to lower our sail and 
take refuge under a low rocky point, but the wind soon died away to a 
calm and we made Little Lake under oars. This is a pretty sheet of water 
about a mile long and more or less half a mile in width ; it is really the wide 
expansion of a small river and is connected to Bear Lake by a short, deep, 







\Jf. i 


it *k %M^*~ 1 


i ^4 


y|/ J 


i 










> 


^. i 




™v™ 














Wk 




^ . 


^iWKi$ , \*HP 








3 




'" ****■! 










•# ■ 




' ' PjjfP 


* ^^^BHI 


JSC: j" : 'I ' 







At Little Lake 

and narrow channel. A number of Indians, the families of those Bear 
Lakers we had seen at Fort Norman, were camped near here, and at a 
little settlement of log shacks about a mile farther along the lake shore; 
their nets were set off the mouth of this river and in the short channel to 
Little Lake; some of the women soon came along to our camp in their 
small birch-bark canoes. We tied up right alongside the shore and made 
camp just below the site of Franklin's old house, though of this there are 
no remains but a pile of rocks that had once been a chimney. It was a 
good harbour and a good place to refit, but in all other respects a poor 



74 Xante fforlorn 

camping ground. The only trees around were small larch and spruce; 
firewood was scarce and mosquitoes were plentiful. 

The Indians decided to start back to Fort Norman that same night, 
so I wrote the last letters that would reach civilisation for more than a 
year, wondering at the time whether they would be received with due 
appreciation and judged with due leniency. I was completely tired out, 
the mosquitoes were in clouds, and the Indians impatient to start; alto- 
gether those letters were written under very trying circumstances. 

With Lixie acting as interpreter we made a final arrangement with 
Francois, who agreed to work for us for a couple of months. 

It was one in the morning when the Indians finally started back to 
Fort Norman in the big birch canoe we had brought along with us. I was 
just getting ready for a big sleep when I noticed the water was gaining so 
much in the Jupiter that some of our stuff was in danger of getting spoiled. 
I had to turn to and bale her out at once and pile some of the cargo ashore 
and the rest out of the way of the water; it was 3 a.m. and the sun well 
above the horizon before I got to bed. 

We had always agreed that our first day at Great Bear Lake should 
be a day of rest ; it proved instead a day of considerable activity. I woke 
up at six, anxious about the Jupiter, and found her leaking so badly that 
I called Francois out and we unloaded most of the remaining stuff before 
breakfast. While we were having this we saw the York boat of the Bear 
Lake Indians crossing the lake. This explained the anxiety of our Indians 
to return and some of their zeal in working so hard on the way up the river. 
Unknown to ourselves it had been a kind of a race ; with their smaller boat 
and bigger crew the Bear Lakers had been boasting that they would beat 
us to the lake, and our crew evidently wanted to exult in their victory to 
the utmost by passing the others on their way back to Fort Norman. 

We put in a busy day; we unloaded all the cargo and caulked the 
various leaks, then restowed everything in the best shape for our voyage. 
Lion changed the sail ; we turned our former mast into a yard and sacrificed 
our big steering sweep, making a mast of it; we used a rudder when sailing. 



Zbe Bear IRiver anb (Sreat Bear Xafce 75 

Lion's experience with square rigged wind-jammers was valuable indeed 
on this occasion. By six that evening we were ready to start, but the light 
fair wind died away so we decided to wait. 

Lion and I paddled up to the little Indian settlement and saw Father 
Rouvier and Hornby, who had come up the river with the Indians. They 
were all going on to Dease River, the Indians to hunt caribou, while the 
father and Hornby intended to get to the Dismal Lakes if possible and 
establish quarters for the winter there. We got back to our ship early and 
that night I had one of the best sleeps that had ever fallen to my lot. 

Next day, Sunday, July 16th, was a lovely bright day with a fresh 
fair wind. We made an early start, poling the Jupiter out through the 
channel, then we hoisted our sail and stood across to the settlement, where 
Francois and his wife wanted to go ashore. We hove to waiting for them, 
impatient at the delay and the fine fair wind we were wasting; at last they 
came off in the Aldebaran with another little girl and another dog! While 
waiting for Frangois, Hornby came out in a boat to see us ; we said good- 
bye to him again, hoping to meet next time on the Dismal Lakes. 

We had things properly organised on board now. The Jupiter, as I 
have said, was about 55 ft. long by 12 ft. beam, like a big open skiff. 
The mast was stepped amidships with fore and back stays and shrouds, the 
single sail we carried was 18 ft. high by 22 ft. wide, we steered with a long 
tiller from a small deck aft ; we had a good spirit compass and this was set 
in chocks on the after-deck. The cargo was distributed so as to leave one 
clear space just forward of the mast, another just aft, and a third below the 
stern deck. The Francois family had the forward space all to themselves. 
The Polaris was stowed on board upside down and this made a good roof 
for their sleeping quarters; we towed the Aldebaran. The space aft of the 
mast we used for our own sleeping quarters ; it was big enough to hold two 
camp cots set thwart ships. We had only these two cots, but as Lion and 
I were never asleep at the same time one was enough for us, and the Doctor 
had the other. The small space aft was our kitchen ; we had two Juwel 
oil lamps, on which all our cooking was done. Lion and I kept watch-and- 



7 6 



Xanfcs jforlorn 



watch proper deep-sea fashion. Francois was crew, and stood by to help, 
but the only time his services were required was when we came to or left 
shore, which wasn't often. The Doctor was cook; we had meals at the 
change of the watches: breakfast at eight, dinner at noon, tea at six. We 
lived for the most part on hominy, hard-tack, erbswurst, salt pork; with 




The Jupiter under Full Canvas 



chocolate and tea to drink; a diet that did not seem to inspire the Francois 
family with much enthusiasm, though they liked the erbswurst well enough. 
They called it " beans" which wasn't a bad guess. 

Lion finished out the first watch, and when I relieved him at noon our 
favourable breeze had nearly died away and we were drifting slowly along the 
shore with scarcely more than steerage way. This part of the lake shore is 
well wooded, almost to the water's edge; the shores are low gravel hills. The 
weather turned dull and threatening, the wind sprang up from the N. N. E. 
and we fell off from our course a good deal. We had never been unduly op- 



Gbe Bear 1Rh>er an& (Breat Bear lake 77 

timistic in our expectations of the Jupiter's sailing qualities, but she made 
even more leeway than we expected. I don't think we ever made better 
than within seven and a half points of the wind. 

It turned cold and more and more unpleasant, and the wind freshened 
considerably. I took the 6-8 dog watch; at the end of that time we were 
far out in the lake, much to the consternation of the Francois family, who 
evidently thought our methods of navigation quite wrong. For the Indians 
simply poke along the shore; if they have a wind dead aft they sail, if it is 
calm they row, and if a head wind they tie up till it changes, and tie up for 
the night in any event. This method of navigation is all right when there 
is a crew of eight or ten men, but with our desperately short-handed vessel 
we wanted to keep clear of the land ; it was nothing but possible danger to us ; 
we hadn't even an anchor. So although we were getting rather badly off our 
course we had really no choice but to stand on as we were. 

The continual daylight was of the greatest advantage to us now ; with- 
out that our voyage would have taken much longer. 

It was cold, raw, and threatening when Lion took the tiller at eight ; the 
dark clouds over the now distant spruce forests looked gloomy enough and 
matters got worse as the night came on. I tried to sleep my watch below 
but I was chilled through and it took a long time to get warm ; the sea got up 
and the old Jupiter began to labour heavily. At midnight I turned out to 
relieve Lion; we had been blown far off our course and the high hills on the 
south side of the lake were visible. Close to the north of us was a low, rocky 
island; no islands are shown here on any map of the lake and it is quite 
possible that we were the first to see this one, particularly when the stick-to- 
the-shore methods of navigation in the north are considered. But it was 
rather curious to come across such an island so unexpectedly in the weird 
midnight dusk of a wild night ; especially to Lion, accustomed as he was to 
working with accurate charts. 

The weather got thicker and the land was soon hidden by mist. The 
sea ran higher and higher, the old Jupiter wallowed along through it, her 
timbers groaning and her sides swelling in and out like an accordion as the 



78 Xanbs jforlorn 

strain was thrown on and off the weather shrouds. I expected some- 
thing to carry away any moment. Lion, who had turned in but who 
was sleeping no more than I had done, said afterwards that he expected 
the whole side of the boat to give way. What Francois thought we 
never knew, probably his fears of a sudden end were partly compensated 
for by the feeling that his ideas were now shown to be right; and that 
our methods, carried out in spite of his protests, had been proved quite 
crazy. 

About 2 a.m. I sighted two more smaller islands to the north of us. 
The mist cleared off a little and I could see the high Great Bear mountains 
again, and out in the lake, some eight or ten miles ahead, a long line of 
spruce trees. I thought this was another island close to the mainland, and 
as we could just about fetch it on our present course I hoped to find shelter 
under its lee. By 4 a.m. we were close to its southern point ; it proved to be 
a long hook-shaped point enclosing a bay several miles long and about a mile 
and a half wide, a most welcome harbour to us at the time when we most 
needed it. In fact we had struck the only place on this coast that was safe 
from a north wind. 

It was delightful to pass into the quiet water behind the point ; the wind 
moderated and it turned out a lovely day. We stood across this bay, the 
shore was lined with dense spruce forest coming down to a sandy beach ; 
these were the biggest spruce trees we had seen since leaving the Slave River. 
Behind the dark spruce forest rose the high Great Bear hills with large 
areas of brilliant green ; they were too far away to determine exactly what 
trees or bushes these were, but they looked very cheerful in contrast to the 
sombre spruce. 

The water was so shallow we could not get within two hundred yards of 
the shore ; it was a sandy bottom with rocks here and there. We landed 
in the Aldebaran and got a couple of big stones with which to anchor the 
Jupiter, then we all went ashore and had a comfortable breakfast on that 
beautiful beach with the big spruce trees above us and the placid bay in 
front, a pleasant change indeed after the last twelve hours. Especially 



Gbe Bear IRiver anb (Sreat Bear Xafce 



79 



did the Francois family seem to appreciate solid ground again, but they 
never were demonstrative under any circumstances. 

We took things easy to-day ; the wind died down, and by evening it was 
quite calm; so, after another comfortable meal ashore, we embarked again 




A Welcome Harbour 



and with much labour rowed the Jupiter across the bay and anchored off the 
point ready for the first fair wind. We could work only two sweeps ; it took 
us more than an hour to make that mile and a half. I was on watch 8-12 
and spent most of the time ashore on the point, hoping to get some duck. 
There were large numbers of small gulls ; they highly resented our presence 
and kept swooping and screaming around the boat. Lion tried fishing on 
his watch, but didn't get anything. 

The next day was dull and rainy; we all had our breakfast ashore, 



80 Xanbs forlorn 

then the wind sprang up from the south-west, so we stood out in the lake 
again heading for Gros Cap. This day and the succeeding, July 18th and 
19th, were dull, cold, and rainy, often with very heavy showers. The 
winds were light and variable, and though we made some progress it was by 
a very erratic course. About half-way across the lake we ran into a field of 
ice and had to make a detour to the west to avoid it. We went so far west, 
in fact, as to see the two islands again that we had sighted on the night of 
the 1 6th. We got to the north of this ice and shaped our course for the 
cape again. Early in the morning of July 19th we passed some reef just 
showing above water; we were then off the entrance of Richardson Bay 
and some fifteen or eighteen miles from it. There was more ice here also. 
We felt the cold a great deal during these two days, though the ther- 
mometer was four to eight degrees above the freezing point with very little 
variation ; but it rained so much and so often that everything was more or 
less damp. Meal hours were the only bright spots in the day, and a good 
bowl full of steaming hot erbswurst the summit of happiness. We had 
brought a small amount of good brandy and rum "for emergency"; the 
brandy didn't seem to help us much, but the rum, an excellently good 
Jamaica rum put up by the Hudson Bay Company, certainly warmed the 
blood in our veins. This is one of the few times in my experience that I 
ever felt any direct and positive good from the use of alcoholic stimu- 
lants. Personally my bias is against them as such, and as a matter of fact 
we never had another real occasion for their use all the time we were in the 
North. But so much has been written against them, often indiscrimi- 
nating nonsense, that it is a pity to miss an opportunity of recording the 
undoubted good they did on this occasion. 

It was not till the morning of July 20th that we made Gros Cap under 
a light fair wind. As we passed a point we saw a York boat moored to the 
beach and knew this could only be the Hodgson outfit on their way back to 
Fort Norman. Wc landed at their camp and had the pleasure of meeting 
Mr. Hodgson, a fine-looking old man, a well-known old-timer in the North. 
They had left the Dease River some three weeks previously and had niade 



Gbe Bear IRiver ant) (Sreat Bear Xafce 81 

their way slowly along the south shore of Dease Bay which they reported 
to be now free from ice. A fair wind was being wasted so we could not spend 
much time with them. Before we left Mr. Hodgson kindly gave us per- 
mission to use the shack he had built at Dease River, if we wished. 

We said good-bye to them and continued our voyage, but we had gone 
only a few miles when the wind dropped, then changed to the north bringing 
up dense fog. We had to stand back to the land again; fortunately the 
wind was no more than a gentle breeze and we felt our way back carefully 
through the fog, coming to anchor behind a slight point that gave us a 
certain amount of protection. We had no idea how far we really were from 
the point on which the Hodgson party were camped. 

The Doctor and I started out in the Aldebaran to follow the shore 
farther to the north and see if there was any better harbour near ; we were 
quite unprotected from any east to north-east wind, and for anchors we had 
only rocks. It was quite interesting and mysterious to follow an unknown 
coast line through a dense fog, but it soon trended so much to the west that 
we gave up hope of rinding any harbour in this direction. We landed and 
climbed a bare gravelly hill. It was pleasant to get ashore again, every- 
thing was strange and interesting. We had suddenly found ourselves in 
quite a foreign country ; for the shrubs and plants were completely different 
from those on the south side of the lake either in species or in character. 
The spruce trees were very stunted and scattered, there were none near the 
lake at all. There were lots of flowers, all strange to us, some of them gave 
quite a heavy smell of clover to the air, bringing up vivid recollections of a 
country very different from this. 

While we were poking around on shore the fog lifted long enough to 
enable us to see over the lake for a few miles to the north and west of us ; 
it was covered with ice as far as we could see in that short distance ; no open 
water was visible at all. We did not investigate to find whether this was 
fixed ice or floes, and at the time we were doubtful which it was. From later 
experience we know they must have been floes. There was no use looking 
for a harbour in this direction so we went back to the canoe ; and while re- 



82 Xanbs jforlorn 

turning to our ship the fog came down thicker than ever and we nearly 
rammed the Jupiter before we saw her. 

We tried south and found the land trended to the west in that direction 
also. Then the fog lifted and we could see that we were near the point of a 
wide shallow bay, evidently five or six miles at least from the place where 
we had seen the Hodgson outfit. We returned to the Jupiter and decided to 
stay where we were anchored and await the pleasure of the wind. 

We landed and put in the time hunting ptarmigan, our first meeting 
with these birds which proved such good friends to us later on. The fog 
hung around the lake, but it was nearly always clear and bright ashore ; the 
open hilly country with a few scattered spruces looked very inviting after 
the monotony of thick unbroken forests. 

We made camp ashore that night, Lion and myself keeping our 
watches as usual, but with the unusual comfort of a cheerful fire. 

Next day, July 21st, was still foggy and the wind still very light, but it 
had come around from the south. This was all in our favour, so we made a 
start and stood across the lake on a course for Cape McDonnell, the nearest 
point on the other side. We made slight headway till afternoon when a 
steady breeze sprang up from the south-east and then we made good progress. 
We left most of our troubles behind us at Gros Cap ; thereafter the voyage 
was nothing but a pleasure trip. 

The first land we saw was the high mountains far inland on the north 
shore of the lake. This was at 10 o'clock that night ; the sun was then near- 
ing the horizon, and with beautiful effects it slowly dipped behind them. 
Cape McDonnell was abeam at 11 p.m., but we had made so much leeway 
that we were now far to the north of it. This is low-lying land and we could 
barely make it out. Next morning we were still on the same tack with the 
Narrakazzae Islands ahead of us. But our leeway was so great that we 
passed clear to the north of them. 

It was a perfect pleasure to be on board the Jupiter that day, the 
weather was lovely beyond description, and we had the interest of land 
visible in all directions ahead. We kept on slowly all day, doing the best 



Zbc Bear 1Riv>er an& (Sreat Bear Xafte 83 

we could with the Jupiter close hauled ; by five in the afternoon we brought 
up at a low peninsula on the north shore of Dease Bay, about thirty 
miles from the Dease River. 

We could do no more till we had favourable winds ; it was annoying to 
be hung up almost in sight of our port, and time so precious, but patience 
was our only resource. We had a snug little harbour, a comfortable camp 
ashore, and plenty to interest us in the novel character of our surroundings. 

It was the afternoon of the next day, July 23d, before a favourable 
breeze came ; we started again but only to be driven back by a sudden change 
of wind. Lion and I were standing our watches all the time and we made 
another start on July 24th, at 3 A.M. Lion got the ship under way single- 
handed. I came on watch at 4 a.m. that morning; we were then running 
before a gentle west wind and what we took to be Big Island was some fifteen 
miles ahead of us. Everything looked promising for a clear run, when the 
wind suddenly changed to south-east and a dense fog came up. All I could 
do was to keep the Jupiter as close hauled as possible, though we were fast 
being driven into some kind of a bay. I expected to find ourselves ashore 
any minute, as this part of the lake is full of islands, shoals, and points. 
Luckily for us the wind was only a gentle one, and after an hour of anxiety 
it suddenly changed again to the south-west and soon increased to a good 
fresh breeze. I could now only make a wild guess where Big Island lay, 
but I made the best guess I could on the compass and headed for that. 
The wind freshened and the Jupiter showed a capacity for speed quite 
unsuspected. 

The fog was soon blown away; at 8 a.m. we could see Big Island about 
six miles away. My guess had been a good one, and we were heading direct 
for the north channel between Big Island and the shore. Behind us we could 
see, when the fog lifted, a long point that we must have just missed by I 
don't know how slight a margin. 

The wind still freshened and the Jupiter fairly boomed along in front 
of it; certainly she could travel when she got the right conditions. At a 
point to the west of the site of old Fort Confidence we saw a camp of 



84 XanDs jforlorn 

Indians ; they were in the wildest state of excitement at our appearance and 
ran along the shore shouting and waving their arms, but we never stopped 
to talk to them and the fastest runner was soon left far behind. 

On we went past old Fort Confidence, now only a bare grassy space sur- 
rounded by spruce, with four chimneys alone left standing. Farther on we 




Remains of Old Fort Confidence 

saw a small log shack which we knew must be Hornby and Melville's house ; 
it looked like a diminutive chalet among the rocks and spruce. We sped 
across the beautiful bay behind Big Island with its rocky spruce-covered 
shores and rock islets ; the nearer we got to the end of our journey the faster 
the Jupiter went ; we entered the Dease River flying, regardless of possible 
sand-bars or shoals. On and on up the river we went in triumph; in 
spite of banks and bends the wind held fair and strong ; the Jupiter never 
stopped in her wild career till she ran hard and fast aground on a gravel 
bar in mid-stream, just below the first rapid. 



Zhc Bear TOver an& (Sreat Bear Xafte 



85 



Our voyage was over; whatever hard thoughts of the Jupiter we may 
have had at times, they were all forgotten now in her brilliant performance 
at the finish. Indeed we had good reason to be thankful, our voyage had 
taken eight days, but absolutely dependent as we were on fair winds it 




We Arrive at the Dease River 



might well have taken a month. We had had a pretty rough experience at 
first with stormy weather; with ice, rain, and fog. In stormy weather we 
had found a good harbour when most needed, the other incidents were at 
worst mere discomforts The latter part of the voyage had been delightful 
in every way ; the triumphant finish made amends for all the trials of the 
past. 

We were aground a few hundred yards below the first rapid. Lion and 
I paddled the rest of the way and landed just below them. The river here 
makes a horseshoe bend enclosing a long level point thickly covered with 



86 



Xanfcs fforlorn 



spruce trees. On this point Hodgson had built his house. It was a rude, 
poorly built log shack about 18 ft. long by 16 ft. wide, so poor a thing 
that we decided at once to build another ; and after getting the Doctor and 
looking over some possible sites on both sides of the river, we finally decided 




Hodgson's Shack 



to build farther out on the point, about a hundred yards from Hodgson's 
house. 

It was a charmingly situated spot, the river curved around the point, 
with a high sandy cut bank on the opposite side which gave us good protec- 
tion from the north. We were delighted to find the spruce so much bigger 
and better adapted for house building than we had ever hoped in our most 
optimistic moments. "Hodgson's Point" we christened the place; its only 
drawback arose from its very good qualities; we were so snugly sheltered 
that we had no view. 



Gbe Bear iRiver anJ> <5reat Bear Xahe 



87 



Our first business was to get the Jupiter unloaded ; when we got back to 
her she was already afloat, the strong south-west wind had backed up the 
water in the river ; so we brought her alongside, just below the rapid. Hodg- 
son's house was only a couple of hundred yards from here; we began to 




Unloading the Jupiter 



unload at once, packing the stuff to the shack, which we intended to use as a 
storehouse, and very useful it proved. 

The Indians we had passed appeared on the scene just as we had finished 
dinner ; a grand tea-drinking and smoking party took place at once with the 
Frangois family ; we wondered what kind of an account they gave the others 
of their voyage across the lake. These Indians were rather a pleasant- 
looking set ; we tried to get them to come next day and help us with the 
Jupiter, which we intended to haul up ashore. 

By five that afternoon the Jupiter was empty and everything stowed 



88 



Xante forlorn 



safely away in the shack. We put up two of the tents ; Lion and the Doctor 
took one and the Francois family the other; I slept beneath a brush shelter 
left by the Hodgsons, a sleep that lasted from nine that night till 10 a.m. 
next day! 

Our plans for the season had been carefully prepared and we began 




Preparing for our Journey to the Coppermine 



at once to carry them out. Lion was to remain here and build our winter 
quarters while the Doctor and I were to make a preliminary journey to the 
Coppermine. The next three days were busy ones for all : Lion first took 
charge of the job of hauling out the Jupiter; I had to develop all the pictures 
we had taken to date, then the task of getting together our outfit and sup- 
plies for the journey the Doctor and I were to make up the Dease River 
and across the Barrens. 

By the evening of July 27th everything was ready for a start; we had 
a most carefully chosen outfit for our particular purpose and a supply of 



Gbe Bear IRiver ant> (Sreat Bear Xafce 



8 9 



provisions calculated to last fifty days. In the meantime Lion, with the 
assistance of the Indians, had hauled the Jupiter high and dry to her last 
harbour, a safe and pleasant resting place on a willow-covered bank of the 
river. 

And there she is to this day, her purpose served and her work well done. 




The Jupiter's Last Harbour 



IV 



<< -r-^-r . -r^^^ '» 



THE VOYAGE OF THE POLARIS — OUR FIRST JOURNEY TO THE 

COPPERMINE 

NOW came the really serious part of the journey; all our work hither- 
to had been of a preliminary character leading up to this main 
object. We intended to ascend the Dease River as far as possible, 
to cross the divide between its head- waters and the Dismal Lakes, and to 
descend by the Kendall River to the Coppermine. 

Except a copy of a sketch map we obtained from the Canadian Geo- 
logical Survey, we had no maps, for no really accurate map of this part of 
the country has ever been made. The sketch map we had purported to 
be a paced survey of the country between Bear Lake and the Coppermine 
River. But there were such evident discrepancies between this map and 
the accounts of those explorers who have been over this country before us 
that we placed very little dependence on it. 

Our chief guide was Hanbury's book. In July and August, 1902, he 
crossed from the Arctic coast to Bear Lake by way of the Coppermine and 
Kendall rivers, the Dismal Lakes and the Dease River. It was the most 
difficult part of all his extraordinary journey and he describes it in detail; 
we found his account most helpful, accurate, and reliable; only in one place 
is there a small omission, perfectly excusable. 

But it must be remembered that Hanbury was coming down stream, and 
for him all roads led to Bear Lake, while ours was the more difficult task of 
ascending , with possible roads at the latter part branching out in all directions. 

90 




The Site of our House 



9i 



92 



Xanbe jforlorn 



At io a.m. on Friday, July 28th, we started. The Polaris was loaded up ; 
we took the last photographs of each other at the beginning of our respective 
tasks, the last good-byes and good wishes exchanged, and we began our voyage. 

The Dease River is a broad shallow stream, usually about 130 yards 




The Polaris and her Crew 



wide, though some of the rapids are only ten or fifteen yards across. 
When we started, the water in the river was at its very lowest ; 
generally speaking it is not continuously swift but a series of shallow 
rapids, with the water running over gravel and small boulders; and 
quiet stretches intervening, where the water flowed deep and sluggish 
between high sandy banks, and where the paddles could be used to 
advantage. 

We had to wade the canoe up the rapids ; the water was seldom so swift 
that it required both of us at that job and one could handle the boat much 



©ur first 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 93 

better by himself. I usually waded the boat up, the Doctor stood by to 
help or lightened her by carrying some of the stuff. 

It was all mercilessly hard work, harder really than even the tracking, 
but there was constant variety and intermissions of rest that we never knew 
on the tracking line. And we could always indulge in hopes in a way quite 
impossible when at the latter task ; we could always hope that the next rapid 
might be the last, or at least so deep that it wouldn't be necessary to lighten 
the canoe; or that the next stretch of quiet water might last several miles. 
It is true these hopes were seldom justified, but enough good streaks came 
along with the bad to keep our spirits up. 

Then we had good grub and good equipment, our camps were always 
comfortable, and we took trouble in preparing our meals. We had learned 
the necessity of taking good care of our bodies ; they were mere machines for 
the conversion of heat into energy and required the careful attention neces- 
sary for every high class machine. 

Altogether this journey would have been one of sheer pleasure if it had 
not been for the shortness of the season which left us so little time in which 
to do so much work. We couldn't afford to follow byways inviting explora- 
tion, or to move at our convenience as regarded the weather; wet or dry 
rain or shine, we had to shove on. 

This first day we had lunch about three miles above Hodgson's Point 
on a high sandy bank; there was an Indian grave there, the palisades looked 
quite fresh, and we learned afterwards that it was the grave of Francois's 
father. 

While at lunch we saw a flock of young geese gravely swimming down 
the river in a long line; they looked at our canoe awhile, then decided to 
turn back. We overtook them later on and murdered four of them with a 
little .22 pistol. But our needs were imperative, and those young geese 
gave us some of the most delicious stews I ever tasted. We struggled on 
all afternoon ; it was bright and warm, the river was a succession of shallow 
rapids with quiet stretches of deep water between, and we were well pleased 
with the progress we had made. 



94 



Xanbs forlorn 



We camped at the head of an island, at a place where it was in any case 
necessary to portage all our stuff. It was an ideal camping spot, and we sat 
down to our supper of stewed goose that night in a state of complete content. 
This was No. i Camp, a place that became well known to us later on. 



', ■ - 










iiLi 








Ifi&S 










PlifiS363?B^^ 





The Canon 



Next morning we made an early start, but things didn't come so easy as 
the day advanced. The river was very swift and very shallow, spread over 
a wide gravelly bed. We had to make constant portages of all our stuff, and 
in some places the river was so spread out and divided that there was scarcely 
enough water to float the empty canoe. At one shallow rapid I knocked 
a hole in her ; we had to stop at once and repair it ; I had brought some thin 
sheet brass for this purpose. We camped that night just above a limestone 
gorge through which the river cuts; the scenery is very picturesque, but 



©ur first 3ournes to tbe Coppermine 



95 



somewhat depressing from its very ruggedness. We recognised at once a 
large pillar of rock standing in the river described by Simpson, whose men 
called it the "Old Man of Hoy." A hard day's work had brought us only 
four or five miles from our No. i Camp. This was not encouraging, and 




The Canon— Old Man of Hoy to Right 



there was a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm in our attitude towards the Dease 
River that night, till after we had eaten and been cheered by a good supper. 
I climbed to the top of a hill behind our camp hoping to see some caribou. 
I saw no game but the view at this part was rather fine. A range of bare 
hills lay to the north-east, one high peak detached from the others was not 
far from the river; this had been visible since leaving the Indian grave. 

We had a long portage to make next morning, and then, after surmount- 
ing a series of rapids, we came to a fine quiet stretch of water. 



9 6 



Xanbs jforlorn 



We decided to camp near the big hill and have a look over the country. 
According to our sketch map we were now only about fifteen miles from the 
Dismal Lakes. We didn't exactly believe this, but certainly the map had 
proved accurate enough as far as we had come, and we fervently hoped it 
might prove correct in other respects as well. It was in just these other 




Observation Hill 



parts that we needed guidance most and where the map failed to check up 
with Hanbury's and Simpson's accounts of the country. 

We called this hill Observation Hill, but learned afterwards that the 
Indians call it Rabbitskin Mountain. 

We got a magnificent view from the top; to the south-west the Dease 
River ran winding among spruce-covered hills, beyond lay Bear Lake; we 
could even see the Narrakazzae Islands and a high point on the north shore 
that had been a great landmark to us during the last two days of our voyage 
on the Jupiter. To the north the scenery was very different, a wilderness 



©ur tfirst 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 97 

of sandy plain and sparse stretches of spruce, countless lakes and green 
marshes ; far to the north, blue in the distance, lay a range of low mountains. 
It was quite impossible to trace the Dease River in this confusion of small 
lakes, and evidently we were still a long way from the Dismal Lakes; we 
concluded unwillingly that they must lie beyond those distant mountains in 
the north-east. 

We walked farther along this high range of hills ; it had been very warm 
on the river, but it was pleasantly cool here. The blue berries were ripe and 
grew in prodigious quantities on absurdly small bushes, little things not 
more than a couple of inches high, but loaded with big juicy berries. But the 
black flies were fierce, they assailed us in swarms ; it is harder to defend one- 
self against them than against mosquitoes. We went back to our camp in 
good spirits ; our disappointment at failing to see anything to indicate the 
proximity of the Dismal Lakes did not last long ; we had not really expected 
to, and it looked as though we would have better conditions on the river 
next day. 

And so indeed it proved, we made a good early start, shoving off 
in a pouring rain which lasted most of the day. But we had good go- 
ing, with an uninterrupted ten-mile paddle for a start ; it was a perfect 
joy to make progress like this after our late incessant wading and portag- 
ing, and we didn't mind the rain so long as we had such good conditions 
for canoeing. 

The river was really very pretty although somewhat monotonous. It 
curved between high banks of clay or sand, level on top and covered with a 
thick growth of small spruce trees and usually with thick willows coming 
close to the water's edge. It was deep and sluggish, with a scarcely percep- 
tible current. 

All along the river animal life abounded. There were ptarmigan ashore 
and muskrats in the water; the latter paid very little attention to us but went 
about their business quite undisturbed. Every few hundred yards we would 
pass a mother duck with a small fleet of little ones. The old birds would 
come fluttering right to the canoe in heroic efforts to distract our attention 



9 8 



Xan&6 tforlorn 



from their young ones ; it was quite pathetic to see how anxious they were to 
sacrifice themselves to give their flocks a chance to escape. But we never 
molested them though we shot some more young geese to-day. 

The rain lasted all morning ; during the latter part of the morning and 




Wading 



all afternoon we were struggling against swift and shallow water. We 
camped that night at what had evidently been the camp of one of the early 
explorers, probably it was one of Simpson's camps. There was even a pile 
of firewood cut, ready for use; it was much weathered but still sound enough 
to make a good blaze. Little did the chopper of this wood think who would 
finally use it, or at what late date. 

Our struggle against swift and shallow water continued next day ; it was 
a case of wading nearly all the time at this part of the river. We had some 



©ur ifirst Journep to tbe Coppermine 



99 



dark and gloomy looking hills ahead of us all day ; late in the afternoon we 
came to a place where the river made a sudden bend and we soon saw 
that it cut through a high rocky dyke that extends for many miles across the 
plain. It is a notable landmark, we called it "Notman Dyke." We had 




Notman Dyke 



to make a complete portage of our stuff for several hundred yards here and 
we camped at the end of the portage. 

The day closed in dark and gloomy with a cold north wind. The view 
from the top of the dyke was inexpressibly wild and menacing ; rugged barren 
hills and dark stagnant swamps were around us, and a threatening wind- 
swept sky above. It was a relief to turn into our snug little tent and forget 
all our troubles in sleep. 

We still had swift and shallow water all next morning ; then we came to a 



ioo Xanbs fforlorn 

sandy plain through which the river wound in great loops. It was deep 
enough to use our paddles and we made fair progress, but so crooked was the 
river that sometimes after paddling a mile or more we would find that we 
had really gained only a few hundred yards. The river had shrunk very 




Hanbury's Kopje 

much in size now; we passed many small tributaries and one large one 
to-day. 

At last after a hard day's work we were gladdened by the sight of a high 
sandy hill, its peculiar flat top covered with a thick growth of small spruce. 
For the last two days we had been looking out for this; it was the "kopje- 
shaped hill" described by Hanbury, and it was near this hill that he had 
struck the main Dease River on his way from the Dismal Lake. 

About a mile below it we passed a tiny stream coming in from the north- 
west; the Doctor hailed this at once as Hanbury's "Sandy Creek." I 



©ur Jfirst 3outne? to tbe Coppermine 



IOI 



wasn't quite so sure about it ; the impression given by the book is that Sandy 
Creek comes in from the north-east, and this stream seemed too minute to 
answer Hanbury's description. We camped that night below "Hanbury's 
Kopje/' as we called the hill, determined to investigate before we went any 




Camp at Hanbury's Kopje 



farther. It rained heavily all that night, our camp was right out on a flat 
sandy beach, but there was plenty of spruce for fire and bedding. 

Next day it was still raining, an incessant light rain. We tried the 
right, the main branch of the river, first; we could paddle a short distance 
above the kopje ; what a delight it was to paddle an unloaded canoe again ! 
We soon came to stony gravelly country, the river was full of rapids, so we 
took to the shore and walked over these undulating gravel hills for several 
miles more. 



102 Xante jTorlorn 

But the farther we went the more evident it became that this could not 
have been Hanbury's route; we returned to our camp and had lunch, then 
started to explore the other little creek. It was a mere rivulet flowing in a 
wide sandy channel, with a line of gravel hills on one side and the sandy plain 
to the south on the other. We landed a mile or so from the mouth and 
struck across to a high range of hills about four miles to the north. 

We called this Granite Ridge ; it rose about five hundred feet above the 
river and commanded a very extensive view, but the weather was too thick 
to see anything that definitely indicated the location of the Dismal Lakes, 
so we returned to our canoe and paddled back to camp. We had not as- 
certained with any certainty that this little stream was Hanbury's route, 
but although it was so small it was navigable to a quite unsuspected degree 
and we decided to try it. So we went back to our camp on the sandy beach 
and made a good early start next day. 

We found it was one thing taking an empty canoe up that little stream 
and another when the canoe was loaded with nearly five hundred pounds 
of stuff. It was desperately discouraging work, incessant hauling, unloading, 
packing, reloading, and hauling, and so on da capo. It took us most of the 
morning to reach the place where we had been with the empty canoe the 
day before. A short distance beyond this the stream branched, making 
our perplexity worse than ever. 

We tried the left hand branch first ; a small sluggish stream, so narrow 
and with bends so sharp that it was almost a matter of difficulty to get our 
eighteen foot Polaris around some of them. And we were getting so far 
to the west that the whole business looked very doubtful ; at last we decided 
to make an attempt to reach the Dismal Lakes on foot and see where they 
actually lay. We made camp at the little forks on the creek, " Junction 
Camp" we called it, a charming spot and a snug camp it was. 

Next day we made an early start in our heroic determination to reach 
the Dismal Lakes on foot. We struck across to Granite Ridge again in- 
tending to follow that along, but the weather came up thick and rainy „ cold 
and raw, even a little snow fell; we could not see anything under these 



©ur 3firet 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 103 

circumstances, so we waited awhile under a high rocky ledge hoping it would 
clear off. While waiting there, cursing the country, cursing the weather^ 
cursing Hanbury and his descriptions (who certainly didn't deserve it), a 
big bull caribou came trotting along right towards us. It never saw or 
suspected us; we simply let it come to within easy range and then killed it. 
This was the first caribou we had seen, and we were surprised to find it so big. 
As a matter of fact it happened to be an unusually large one; we got only 
one other afterwards that ever approached it in size. The incident was a 
welcome diversion from the comminatory service we were holding and the 
caribou meat an even more welcome addition to our grub supply. We 
skinned it and cut it up, piled the meat on a high rock, and threw the hide 
over it. 

Then the weather cleared up and we continued our journey along the 
crest of the ridge for several miles. At last we got right to the end of it and 
were confronted by a plain, in a depression of which lay a round, fairly large 
lake. Beyond this again was the range of mountains, still eight or ten miles 
away. We knew that the Dismal Lakes must lie beyond these somewhere, 
but there was certainly no prospect of walking there in one day ! 

From the end of the ridge we could plainly trace the course of the 
Dease River. It came out of a long lake to the east of us, and from here it 
looked like a promising route. 

For we were now completely at loss to know where Hanbury had been, 
this at least seemed to offer some kind of a route and we decided to try it. 

We went back to our caribou, then came a long hard walk back to 
camp, loaded with all the meat we could carry. We revelled in fresh meat 
that night; with the constant hard work and the wet cold climate, our 
appetites had grown enormous. 

We returned to the main river next morning, and put in a long hard day 
ascending that. It got smaller and smaller as we went on, but in spite of 
constant packing and portaging we made fair progress, and evening found us 
among some steep gravel hills we had seen from Granite Ridge. This part 
of the country was unspeakably savage, ground up by old-time glaciers into 



104 Hante Jfotlorn 

barren gravel moraine. We camped on the shore of a little round lake 
through which the river passed, at the foot of one of the most conspicuous 
of these gravel hills. 

I had a regular disaster the next morning, a disastrous opening to what 
seemed to be a disastrous day. I had put my boots to dry in front of the 
fire and while we were having breakfast one of them rolled in unnoticed 
and was completely spoiled. This was a bad business for me as I had 
only the one pair; after that I was reduced to wearing the heavy cumber- 
some wader-shoes all the time. My feet were always soaking wet, and 
worse than this the wader-shoes were most clumsy and tiring to walk in. 

Things got worse and worse with us to-day. By noon we had not made 
more than a mile from our camp in a straight line, so difficult had the river 
been. Then it spread out over a wide gravelly bed, merely a trickle showing 
here and there; further progress by water was quite impossible. We went 
ahead on foot to see what conditions were like; the river contracted again, 
but it was hopeless for navigation. 

We were still about five miles from the lake; this part of the journey 
would require a complete portage of our stuff and would take several days 
at least to get to the lake. And even once on the lake we were still a long 
way from the Dismal Lakes. We had come much farther to the east than 
we had suspected when looking over this valley from the Granite Ridge. 
From a hill above the south end of Long Lake, as we then called it, we could 
see nothing but rugged hills to the north. The season was getting so late 
that we might despair of ever getting there this summer by a route so pal- 
pably difficult. We discussed the subject in all its bearings, finally deciding 
not to waste our time and strength by persevering in an enterprise so doubt- 
ful, but to turn back to the little creek we had already attempted once, to 
follow it up as far as we could, and to stake the whole success of our journey 
on finding a way to the Dismal Lakes by that route. 

We camped early that day at the farthest point to which we had brought 
the canoe ; our camp was on a high gravel point overlooking the stony river 
bed, a waste of gravel a quarter of a mile wide with the water trickling over 



©ur 3fir0t 3ournep to tbe Coppermine 



105 



it in small streams. The weather had been lowering with frequent showers 
all morning ; now it came on a savage storm with high winds and fine driving 
rain. We called this place "Camp Despair," and desperate indeed did our 
chances of success seem when we turned in that wild and stormy night. 




"Penury, inertness and grimace were the land's portion" 



Next morning broke fair and cold; the rain had stopped and the wind 
had ceased, our wet tent was frozen stiff. We broke camp, packing our 
stuff a quarter of a mile down the river, saving thereby several portages, then 
began the weary job of retracing the journey we had made so confidently. 
But we made much better time going down stream, and the rains had 
swollen the river a little. We camped at Junction Camp again that evening. 

For the second time we shoved our way slowly up the little sandy creek. 
About two miles above the point at which we had turned back before we 



106 Xante iforlorn 

came on some features that made us think that this, after all, might have 
been Hanbury's route. 

And so indeed it proved ; a mile or so farther on we reached a place that 
answered exactly to Hanbury's description, and not only to Hanbury's but 
Simpson's as well. We had always supposed from reading their books that 
they had used different routes, now we could see it had been the same. Later 
on we had proof of this; we found the remains of camps with chopping of 
the same age and character as at some of the old camps we had seen 
on the lower river and had been able to attribute to Simpson; one of these 
camps was in a situation exactly as described by him. In fact, except on the 
lower part of the river where there were frequent signs of the Hornby and 
Hodgson parties, all the indications of any one having been there before were 
old and had been made by Simpson, Richardson, and Rae. We found no 
signs on our whole journey that could be attributed to Hanbury. 

Then followed three days of constant effort. At one place we had to 
make a complete portage of all our stuff for more than two miles. But in 
all this hard work we had the encouragement of knowing that we were on 
the right road; we could work with a will, free from the doubts and 
perplexities of the past week, and worst of all, the haunting sense of 
possible failure. 

The river got smaller and smaller ; we passed from sandy plains to low 
rolling gravel hills, then to sandy hills again. The stream finally became a 
mere sluggish ditch, meandering with many turns through a narrow valley ; 
the hills had closed in on us almost before we knew it. It was evident that 
we had followed the creek to its very source ; before us lay an opening in the 
mountains that we thought might be the divide that Hanbury had crossed. 
At the nearest point to this we made camp ; it was noon of the third day after 
leaving Junction Camp. 

We started out on foot to explore the country; the walking was good 
over gravelly hills that skirted a plain on which many small lakes were 
scattered ; after travelling a few miles we came to a ridge overlooking a long 
narrow valley, with a series of small lakes in it. This was Hanbury's route 



©ur ffirst 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 107 

beyond question, and at the end of this ridge we came in sight of a long 
tongue of water lying among the mountains. We had reached the Dismal 
Lakes at last. 

While taking a rest before starting back to our camp, I was surprised 




Along the Divide 

to see a man walking around on the hills about a mile away from us. He 
disappeared just as I brought my glasses to bear on him, but the glimpse I 
got showed him to be an Eskimo. We could see some kind of a little 
camp on top of the hill and we headed for this, highly excited at the pros- 
pect of meeting these people whom we were so anxious to see. We made a 
cautious approach, fearing to frighten the man, and we were quite close to 
him before he noticed us. Whether it was merely the unexpectedness of it, 
or whether he had never seen any white men before I do not know, certainly 



108 Xante f or lorn 

he was very much frightened. We threw up our arms calling out "Teyma! 
Teyma!" about the only Eskimo word I knew. He did the same, his arms 
were fairly trembling with fright, and he kept repeating something over and 
over in a low moaning tone. However he was soon reassured and smiling. 




Dismal Lake 

He was a stoutly built man, about five feet four inches high. His hair 
hung straight and black behind, all the front part of it was cropped close to 
the skin. His face was open and intelligent, with rosy cheeks and a can- 
didly engaging smile. He was dressed in caribou skins and sealskin boots, 
his general appearance was quite as clean as our own and a pleasant con- 
trast to the dirty, sulky Indians we were used to. He had some spears, and 
a bow and arrows in a sealskin case lying on the ground ; supported by four 
cross sticks was some kind of a roll of skin. We tried to talk to him asking 



©ur first 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 109 

if that was Teshierpi Lake. He nodded his head and repeated "Teshi- 
arping, Teshi-arping. " I gave him a small piece of milk chocolate I had in 
my pocket; he put it in his mouth in a doubtful way. Presently an ex- 
pression of intense delight passed over his wide face; it was very funny 
to watch. 

We tried to explain by signs that we would like him to come back to our 
camp and help us to portage our stuff. He followed us willingly enough for 
awhile ; whether our pace was too fast for him or whether he was afraid to 
trust himself with us so completely I do not know, but he lagged farther and 
farther behind; finally we saw him make a bee-line back to his camp; he 
picked up the roll of skin, gathered up his bow and spears, and disappeared 
toward the lake. 

We were not altogether sorry that he turned back; we had no fresh 
meat left and were doubtful how he would have liked the only food we could 
have given him. It was late when we got back to camp that evening; the 
nights were now beginning to get dark and I saw some of the brighter stars 
to-night for the first time since leaving Fort Smith. 

It took two days to make the portage; the distance was six and a half 
miles, but we were helped out by the small lakes, which made up perhaps 
one- quarter the whole distance. We moved all our stuff along in short trips 
of about five hundred yards ; it took three loads each and one trip with both 
of us to carry the canoe, so that we had to cover the ground seven times. 
But the walking was good and the little lakes gave us most welcome 
rests. 

It was a joyful evening when we finally got all our stuff to a pleasant 
little camping spot at the extreme end of Dismal Lake. We celebrated the 
occasion that night by an extra good feed, with coffee and desiccated rasp- 
berries as a special treat. We had brought a few tins of coffee for great 
occasions; the desiccated raspberries were, alas! a great disappointment. 
But their juice was fine; we mixed it with a little brandy of which we had 
one bottle "for emergency" and it made a drink that we thought was per- 
fectly delicious. We called this "Teshierpi Toddy/; it figured at festive 



no Xanbe forlorn 

occasions later on, and it was the only use we ever had for our desiccated 
raspberries. It was a wild and stormy night, but we were in good spirits; 
our little camp was snugness itself ; we had accomplished the most difficult 
part of our journey, and we hoped for an easy road the rest of the way. 
Moreover, in spite of the time lost around Hanbury's Kopje, we were still 
only two days behind the estimate I had made more than six months ago 
when planning the expedition. 

We took things easy the next morning; it was seven before we got up, 
our usual hour was five. It was still dull and threatening, but the wind had 
greatly moderated. It was a joy to load up the canoe and to put on her 
canvas covers, sure that we would have no occasion for the everlasting 
handling of stuff that had hitherto been necessary. 

It was this part of the lakes that Simpson saw when he gave them their 
name ; there never was a name better deserved so far as the western extrem- 
ity is concerned, though it is unmerited as regards the rest of them. Any- 
thing more unspeakably dismal than the western end I never saw; the lake 
is shut in by high bare rocky hills ; those to the north still had huge drifts of 
snow in places, probably these drifts never disappear. The hills on the 
southern side are sharp broken rocks unmitigated by any softening influence 
of plant life. Five or six miles from its western end the lake narrows to 
half a mile or so in width, a sombre sheet of water between threatening hills. 
BeyondJfliese narrows the character of the lake changes; instead of the bare 
rocky hills there are gently rounded slopes covered with grass and heaths, 
wholly pleasant in aspect. 

We paddled along the south shore of the lake ; by noon it began to rain 
heavily and kept it up all day and all night. We got to the first narrows at 
6 p.m. ; we must have paddled at least twenty-seven miles to-day. A sandy 
bar stretches across the lake here; it was so shallow that we had to wade. 
The south shore is a series of small sandy cliffs, the north shore consists of low 
willow-covered stretches, and there is a low sandy island also covered with 
willows. I walked along the shore ; it was strewn with the bones of caribou ; 
bones of all ages scattered like driftwood along the beach. These narrows 



©ur jfirst 3ournep to tbe Coppermine m 

are a favourite crossing-place for the caribou; vast numbers must have 
perished here at various times. We entered what appeared to be a river, a 
narrow passage between steep gravel hills with a quite perceptible current. 
Along the hills we saw lines of stones set up on end, each one crowned with 




Camp at the Narrows — Dismal Lake 

a tuft of grass ; this was the work of the Eskimos in their systematic warfare 
against the caribou. 

We camped on a level mossy spot at the foot of one of these gravel 
hills; it was pouring rain, fire was out of the question, we had nothing but 
moss and heaths to make it of. We just put up our tent and turned in, 
thankful that we had plenty of hardtack and even yet some milk chocolate. 

It was a lovely morning next day, clear and bright ; everything looked 
fair and fresh in the unaccustomed sunlight. With a great deal of trouble 
we got together enough dry willow twigs to make some tea and boil a pot of 



n2 Xanfcs ft or lorn 

erbswurst. We thought of Hanbury's remarks on the ease of making a 
fire at all times on the barrens, and wished we could have had him there 
that morning to show us. 

Not till after breakfast, when I climbed the hill behind our camp to 




Eskimo Kayak and Cache 

have a look around, did we discover that there was some kind of an Eskimo 
camp not far from us. A kayak was carefully put away on some little 
stone trestles and loaded down with rocks to keep the wind from blowing it 
about, and various other small belongings, fur clothing, etc., lay around. 

It was at this point that Hanbury met Eskimos on his journey through 
the Dismal Lakes, and evidently it is a favourite camping place with them, 
for there were traces of many old camps in every direction : small fireplaces, 
scraps of bone, and refuse of various kinds and of all ages. 



©ur jftrst 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 113 

But there was no sign of any one, and there was nothing about the camp 
to indicate how long it had been deserted. We feared that the Eskimo we 
had seen at the end of the lake had given the alarm, and that they had left 
this part of the country. We placed a few needles and files around the camp, 
I put a piece of milk chocolate under the kayak so that they could identify 
their visitors, and then we continued our journey. 

The middle one of the three lakes making up the Dismal Lakes is much 
shut in by mountains. Those on the north side rise abruptly in terraces to 
nearly a thousand feet above the lake. On the south side is a high rounded 
hill ; it rises eight hundred feet and seen from the north and east it is quite 
regular in shape ; we called it Teshierpi Mountain ; it is a notable landmark. 
Though so much shut in by hills the middle lake is not gloomy, Teshierpi 
Mountain showed slopes of green coming right to the water's edge, even 
the sharp cliffs of the mountains on the north side were interspersed with 
cheerful grassy terraces. The second lake ends in a shallow sand-bar 
stretching right across the lake, then comes a tangle of small sandy willow- 
covered islands. There is a difference of elevation quite perceptible ; the 
lakes are connected by a short river flowing through a sandy channel. 
Quite a large stream comes in from the south at these narrows ; we did not 
discover it till on our way back when we called it the Teshierpi River. 

The last of the Dismal Lakes is the smallest and most beautiful of all, 
a delightful sheet of water about three miles long and a mile or less wide, 
with gently rising grassy shores and surrounded by mountains at just that 
distance at which they are most charming, close enough to give an impres- 
sion of intimacy and protection, and far enough away to be free from any 
feeling of imprisonment. Like the other two lakes there is a shallow sandy 
bar extending right across its eastern end ; a small river comes in from the 
south-west ; Richardson mentions this stream. 

We entered the Kendall River; it is considerably larger than I expected 
to find it. No doubt it had been swollen by the continual rains, although the 
water was brilliantly clear. We found small spruce again at the extreme 
end of the third lake and the Kendall River flows between banks covered 



H4 Xante 3forlorn 

with sparsely wooded small spruce. We camped that night about a mile 
below the lake expecting that a few hours' run next day would take us right 
to the Coppermine Mountains. 

Our food supply was beginning to worry me ; our consumption had been 
far in excess of what we had figured on. The caribou we had shot had helped 
us out, but we had been able to take only a small amount of the meat and 
that had soon spoiled in the continual wet and constant handling. We 
had got young geese, ptarmigan, and ducks from time to time along the 
river, but we couldn't afford the time for systematic hunting. The only 
fish we had obtained so far had been a few Arctic trout that we had shot in 
the shallow rapids of the upper river. We had tried trolling when passing 
through the Dismal Lakes, but here again we could not afford the time and 
had thrown our bait into the water only when we were passing some of the 
long gravel points, as Hanbury says this is the best place to catch the lake 
trout. A year later when crossing Great Bear Lake and fishing for our daily 
food we found that we could always catch plenty of lake trout trolling in the 
small bays. 

To-night we got out our net for the first time ; however simple it seems 
in the abstract I soon found that to set a net properly requires, like any of 
the skilled trades, a high degree of manual skill; and besides this, an ex- 
traordinary command of one's temper. But I finally got that net set, after 
a fashion, and we hoped for some of those fabulous hauls of fish that we 
had heard of. 

I turned out very early next morning ; my first care was to examine the 
net and I found we had caught one white fish of about three pounds weight. 
And that wretched fish had tangled up the net worse than ever ; by the time 
I got the fish extricated and the net ashore it looked like a stringy bunch of 
cotton waste. , 

I crossed the river in the canoe, throwing out a trolling bait as I did so 
and catching a fine lake trout of about five pounds. 

A short distance above our camp, on the opposite shore of the river, 
I came on the remains of a quite extensive camp; this can be identified 



©ur ifirst 3ourne£ to tbe Coppermine 115 

without any doubt as the remains of the provision station established by 
Simpson in the spring of the year 1838. The place seemed gloomy enough 
to me that early rainy morning thinking about our food supply and the 
unknown dangers of the Kendall River. The picture was taken under more 




The Kendall River — Remains of Simpson's "Spring Provision Station" 

favourable circumstances on our return voyage, when that stretch of the 
river and the mountains in the background looked lovely indeed. 

We broke our camp in a pouring rain, and, making everything extra 
snug aboard the Polaris, we started our run down the Kendall River. 

The river is much like the lower Dease River in character, but every- 
thing is on a larger scale, except the spruce trees along the shores, which are 
shorter and more stunted. About four miles from the lake we landed and 
climbed a high limestone hill not far from the river. Hanbury mentions this 



n6 Xanbs jforlom 

hill and the view obtained from the summit of the most easterly Dismal Lake. 

To-day the country looked most forlorn and melancholy, with the more 

distant mountains hidden in mist and over everything the incessant rain. 

The unexpected length of the river surprised us. Hanbury supposed 




Canon near the Mouth of the Kendall River 

it could be run in a couple of hours ; evidently we had a much higher stage 
of water than he had, and we ran quickly with delays at only one or two of 
the rapids. 

We ran all morning ; lunch time came and we had a feed of dry hard- 
tack sitting on the muddy bank of the river in the pouring rain wondering 
when we would get to the end of our run. 

All afternoon we continued the descent ; the constant strain of steering 
down the boulder-strewn rapids began to tell on me, the farther we went the 



©ur jfirst 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 117 

worse they got. I can well remember my dismay later on in the afternoon, at 
a time when we certainly expected to have left the Kendall River far behind 
us, to find ourselves at the head of a long, dangerous rapid full of big boulders. 
It was a regular hill, and we went down that place like a toboggan slide. 



Junction of the Kendall River with the Coppermine 

At 5 p.m. we came to a small canyon through limestone cliffs and we 
knew that we were near the Coppermine River at last. 

At the top of the canyon we landed to look ahead, the water 
was swift and at one place there was an ugly "set" against the 
jagged, perpendicular wall, but I thought that I could avoid this, 
and we started out. There is a swift rapid at the head of the can- 
yon ; at the bottom of this rapid we struck a big boulder and knocked 
a great hole in our canoe. The jar and momentary stoppage swung 



n8 



Xante Jforlorn 



me off my course and we got carried into the worst part of the "set." 
Fortunately I had been able to get the canoe bow ahead again 
before we got there; we skimmed past that rocky wall with scarcely 
an inch of clearance; the Doctor did valiant work shoving off and we 




% v. 












The Coppermine River 



came through the canyon in triumph, running the canoe ashore on the 
beach below just before she sunk. 

We found ourselves on a level grassy point between the Coppermine 
and Kendall rivers; we made camp at once and had a good supper off the 
lake trout I had caught in the morning. The rain cleared off later and we 
even had a lovely streak of sunlight on the opposite shore of the Coppermine. 

That river is spread over a wide gravelly bed here with low gravel 
islands and bars; a large river in reality at this point it seems even larger. 



©ur first Bournes to tbe Coppermine 



119 



The water was clear, of a pale greenish colour, but not the perfect clearness 
of the waters we had been accustomed to of late. 

It took me all the next morning to repair the Polaris; she had suffered 
severely on her voyage down the Kendall, and the last blow had been a 




We Arrive at the Coppermine Mountains 



cruel one. But she was a beautifully built boat, made of specially selected 
wood and by men who took a keen personal interest in their work. Good 
reason had we to be thankful for the trouble and care that her builders had 
taken with this boat, and by noon the Polaris was all right and tight again. 

While I was working on the canoe the Doctor had the more difficult 
job of unravelling the net; by the time the boat was repaired the net was 
ready and we set it in an eddy at the juncture of the rivers, making a 
good job of it this time. It was there for nearly twenty-four hours, 



120 



Xanfcs tfbrlorn 



but we caught nothing. We spent the rest of the day hunting and 
prospecting. 

On the morning of August 17th we started again; it was a lovely bright 
day and the conditions for canoeing on this part of the Coppermine River 




Camp at the Coppermine River 



were delightful indeed after our late experiences of rapids and rocks. We 
ran swiftly and smoothly past some high limestone cliffs along the river; we 
had walked over these the afternoon before. After passing them the river 
flows through a pleasant open valley with pretty little groves of small spruce 
scattered along the shores. Leaving the valley and passing among some 
high gravel hills, the river then cuts through the Coppermine Mountains, 
making a big sweep to the east as it does so. We camped on the west shore, 
right at this bend of the river, not far from a small creek marked on Frank- 



©ur jfiret 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 121 

lin's map; the point at which we had beforehand decided to commence 
operations. 

Our first job was to make a good camp ; then we started out, the Doctor 
to make his first acquaintance with the copper-bearing rocks, I myself to 




Coppermine Mountains — Characteristic Terraces 

try and get a caribou, though I was beginning to despair of seeing any, as 
we had come through the best caribou country and had seen only one. The 
food supply was running short and causing us some real concern. But luck 
was with us to-day; at only a couple of miles from camp I saw a big bull 
caribou wandering along a level grassy depression among the mountains. 
I made a cautious approach and fired at about three hundred yards, not 
daring to risk frightening it by going closer. It reared up just like a 
startled horse and began to run around in a circle ; I fired a couple of 



122 Xante tforlorn 

times without apparent effect, and began to be afraid it would start off 
in a straight line instead of keeping in a circle, when to my great relief 
my fourth shot brought it down. Poor brute, the first shot had just taken 
out one eye and the next two had grazed it in different places. The 




Headwaters of Stoney Creek — North Branch 

shortness of our food supply didn't leave me with much sympathy for the 
caribou at the time. It was a large bull, about the same size as the first 
one we got, but fatter and heavier. These first two were the biggest caribou 
we ever killed. 

I returned to camp with all the meat I could pack; it was a joyful 
greeting and a good supper I could give the Doctor when he came back later 
on in the evening. He too had been fortunate among the rocks; our first 
day on the Coppermine was in every way a most pleasant one. 



©ur ffirst 3ourne? to the Coppermine 



123 



The next week was spent among those mountains making preliminary- 
explorations in various directions. The results on the whole were very- 
encouraging, and a full and proper description by Dr. Sandberg will be 
found in the Appendix. 




Coppermine Mountains and River 



The mountains are basalt, rising with terraced sides about 1 000-1200 
feet above the river. It is an interesting and not a difficult country to 
explore, the walking is nearly always good, and the terraces give one a 
choice of easy routes. 

There is a fair quantity of spruce, but only in the immediate vicinity 
of the river; in some sheltered places it grows much larger than one might 
expect so far north. We saw some trees as large as seventeen inches in 
diameter two feet from the ground. But none of these attained more than 



I2 4 



Uanbs forlorn 



twenty-five or thirty feet in height, the average height of the spruce along 
the bank would scarcely exceed twenty feet, and they are all of a twisted 
and rugged character. 

We had a few fine days while we were at the Coppermine Mountains, 




The Road Home 



but the weather was usually wet and cold. We would have liked to have 
continued our journey to the sea; the descent would have been easy enough, 
but the return would have taken more time than we could afford. And it 
was necessary to turn homewards now ; the short northern summer was over 
and there were many signs that winter would soon be on us. 

Our stay at the Coppermine had really been a very pleasant one, the 
comparative rest and good living did us a lot of good, and we were both get- 
ting stronger and stouter every day. 




A View down the Coppermine River 



125 



126 Xan&s tforlorn 

We moved our camp to a point six miles up the river to a point on 
the opposite side and made some cursory explorations to the east. The 
mountains were lower, but as far as we went they were composed of the 
same series of basalts and traps. 

The last days we spent on the river were delightful, we had lovely 
weather ; bright days, ineffably serene, the land lying bathed in strong sun- 
light. We had sharp frost at night and usually we woke to find a fuzzy 
lining of frost on the inside of our tent. 

The ascent of the Coppermine to the Kendall River was easy. Then 
came the long struggle up the Kendall River which took two days of toil 
and fatigue, but we were now more expert at wading and more inured to 
hard work. I was well satisfied that it took no longer and that we had got 
up a difficult stretch of our journey in safety. Hanbury's description of his 
feelings in safely accomplishing this part of his journey so well described my 
own that I shall borrow that intrepid traveller's words. 

Like ourselves they had taken two days to ascend the river, but they 
evidently had a much lower stage of water and they had five men to their 
canoe so that they could use the tracking line at places where we could not. 
When they had finally reached the Dismal Lake, Hanbury says: "We coiled 
and stowed away the tracking lines and resorted to paddles. It was indeed 
a relief to get out on the open and quiet water of a lake. The ascent of a 
dangerous river, or rather I should say a river where continued caution is 
absolutely necessary to prevent an accident, is apt to get on the nerves. 
Every day the attention is strained and every night you are obliged to camp 
close to the thunder and swish of the rough, heavy, and rapid water which 
you know you will have to tackle the following morning. Very old hands 
may not experience these feelings, and very young hands are ignorant of the 
real danger that awaits them in the event of the bad canoe accident. For 
my own part I have not yet got hardened to risks which from ample 
experience I know to be serious." 

It was the descent of a river that had got on my nerves, mostly, I think, 
on account of the difficulties I foresaw we would have on our return. But 



©ur jfirst 3ourne£ to tbe Coppermine 127 

when it came to the point these difficulties smoothed themselves out and we 
made the trip in less time and more pleasantly than I had dared to hope. 

Since we had descended the river only some ten days had passed, yet 
in that short time a complete change had taken place in the appearance of 
its shores. On our journey down it had been the height of summer, the 
mosses on the hills, the willows on the banks, the sedges in the river all wore 
vivid shades of green. Now the whole colour scheme had changed, 
scarcely a green leaf was to be seen. The mosses were every conceivable 
shade of red, wonderfully brilliant ; the willows were a uniform bright yellow; 
the dwarf birches yellow also but paler and less brilliant ; the sedges growing 
along the shore in the water were all mauve and cerise. It was the most 
beautiful display of colour in flora conceivable. 

We spent a few days on the north side of the middle Dismal Lake 
attempting to investigate the country to the north. " Glacier Cove" we 
called our camp; it was right under a steep gravel hill, with hills to protect 
us on either side. A level space lay between us and the lake, a regular floor 
of fine hard gravel covered with a carpet of short thick moss, of all beautiful 
shades of red. It was a snug camp, and among the hills behind us there were 
lots of dead spruce for fire- wood. This is the only place where spruce occurs 
on the Dismal Lakes, except at the extreme eastern and western ends. 

The weather came up thick and stormy ; the mountains were hidden in 
mist and it was impossible to carry out our plans. We did get to the top 
of the range on one occasion, but it came up a dense mist and we had to find 
our way back to camp by compass. 

Then came severe gales from the north-west; lucky indeed we had so 
snugly sheltered a spot. For two days we were completely storm-bound, but 
we had plenty of fire- wood and plenty to eat, for we had shot another cari- 
bou coming up the Kendall River, just as we had come to the end of our 
fresh meat. Eating was our chief amusement during the time we spent at 
Glacier Cove ; the amount of food we could put away was perfectly amazing. 
All the time of our stay at the Coppermine we had lived for the most part on 



128 Xan&s ^forlorn 

caribou, keeping our other provisions for the journey home; now we revelled 
in a varied and luxurious diet. We even put out our net again, but didn't 
catch anything in it, though we got some very nice lake trout trolling. 

At last we gave up the idea of doing any more exploring this season. 
The weather was turning cold rapidly and we had to get over the divide 
before the lakes and rivers froze. 

We made a very early start on the morning of September 1st; we broke 
camp and were under way at 6 a.m. It was a mild, calm morning; 
the lower part of the mountains and the lake were clear, but there was a 
thick fog above ; the effect was very beautiful ; the reflections were simply 
wonderful. 

We stopped at the second narrows where the Eskimo camps were, 
hoping to see something of the people. The camps and the kayak were still 
there, and it was evident that the Eskimos had been around since the time 
we passed; the things we had left had been taken, and we could see that the 
kayak had been moved since our last visit. It was very tantalising to find 
such traces of them but not to see the Eskimos themselves; however, we 
could not wait there on the chance of them showing up, so continued our 
voyage. We got two more caribou to-day, a cow and a large calf. Farther 
along the lake we saw another, a magnificent bull. He was on a small 
island and watched us come within a couple of hundred yards before he 
made any attempt to move. We did not try to get him ; already we had 
as much meat as we could carry. 

The weather went through some sudden and violent changes to-day; 
from a lovely placid morning it turned to a stormy afternoon with strong 
north-west wind. The storm caught us at the western end of the lake; 
there was no protection unless we crossed to the other side. Landing was 
out of the question on that exposed rocky shore; we had no choice but to 
paddle along through it as best we could, but fortunately it lasted only a 
couple of hours, then turned to a quiet sullen evening. We made camp that 
night at our old place at the western extremity of the lake. It had been a 
long hard day for us and we were both of us thoroughly tired; seldom were 



©ur jfirst 3ournep to tbe Coppermine 



129 



our sleeping-bags more welcome or our tent more snug than to-night after 
the struggle against wind and waves we had just come through. 

We slept till late next morning ; then came the heavy work of portaging. 
We had cold weather on the divide, with frosts and snow and with the lakes 




Sandy Creek 



already beginning to freeze. The portage took two and a half days ; we were 
camped twice on the divide. It was at one of these camps that we had the 
first real snow of the year, waking up to be surprised at the curious darkness 
of the tent and rinding that this was due to a couple of inches of snow on it. 
At last we got back to Sandy Creek, and none too soon. 

We made better time going down stream than we had coming up; there 
was more water in the river and our load was lighter. The Doctor usually 
took a pack and walked along the shore, while I took the canoe down. In 



130 Xan&s forlorn 

spite of the lighter boat and the higher water there was still a lot of wading 
and hauling to be done, and wading was now getting to be a desperately- 
cold job — not so much the wading itself as sitting wet in the canoe after. 
The two-mile portage seemed child's play to us now compared to what 




Simpson's Point 

it had been on our journey up when we were fatigued and anxious. Our 
camp on both occasions was at the upper end of this portage; it was among 
some small spruce trees on a low sandy hill close to the river. We called it 
Simpson's Point, as there were traces of him here; and of all our pleasant 
camps in that country, I recall this as one of the most pleasant. 

Although it was a mere rise it commanded a fine view in every direction. 
It was the only clump of spruce for some distance around ; the country was 
undulating gravel plains covered with heaths and dwarf birch. It was a 



©ur ffirst Journey to tbe Coppermine 131 

fine hunting-place ; we saw many small bands of caribou on the surrounding 
plains, and we renewed our stock of fresh meat by killing a small bull. . 

After leaving the two-mile portage we saw lots of human footmarks 
on the sandy beaches of the river that had not been there on our 
journey up. We supposed at first that these had been made by Indians, 
knowing that the Bear Lakers had intended hunting caribou in this part of 
the country. At our old Junction Camp all kinds of havoc had been wrought ; 
trees had been chopped down and thrown across the river to make a kind of 
barricade. We could see from the character of the chopping that it must 
have been done by Eskimos, the trees had been worried through with some 
kind of a small and very blunt tool. I suppose that the barricade was a 
part of their deer-hunting devices. 

We had left a cache here, some food in a waterproof canvas bag which 
I had hung on a cross-arm between two small trees. The bag was all right, 
but when I took it down I noticed that it was tied up differently from the 
way I had left it. When I opened the bag the first thing I pulled out was a 
small sealskin coat and a beautifully made pair of sealskin slippers! Be- 
sides these they had left a bunch of arrows with spruce shafts and copper- 
tipped bone heads and some trinkets carved out of ivory. We were puzzled 
to know what these things could be used for; it was not till next year that 
we found out. One of them was intended to shove through the nose of the 
marmots for convenience in carrying them; the other was a small handle 
with a loop of sinew attached for carrying the stomachs of caribou ! 

The only thing we missed from our camp was an empty lard pail; 
the things left by the Eskimos seemed liberal payment for that, but 
remembering a story of Amundsen's, I thought it possible that they might 
have discovered and appropriated the remains of the caribou that we had 
killed near this camp and the payment may have been intended to cover 
that as well. 

Evidently they had been here until quite recently ; hoping that we might 
yet see something of them, we camped a little above the junction of Sandy 
Creek with the main branch of the Dease River, intending to stay over a day ; 



132 5LanD6 forlorn 

I wanted also to make another trip to Granite Ridge to get some more 
bearings and connect up a compass traverse that I was making of our route. 

We started out next morning; it was a hard, cold day, dull and cheerless, 
with several degrees of frost ; we thought ourselves lucky to be safely over 
the divide to-day. 

There were signs of Eskimos all over the country now where there had 
been none at all on our journey up; in one place they had made quite an 
extensive camp on a hill, and the ground was covered with chips where they 
had been making sleigh runners. 

We walked across that now familiar plain and climbed the Granite 
Ridge once more ; it was a keen pleasure to look over the valley of the Dease 
River and recall how doubtful we had been when we saw it last, how nearly 
we had come to grief by taking a wrong road, and how successful our jour- 
ney had finally been. 

We saw some smoke far to the east of us near the river ; we supposed it 
was Eskimos and even thought for awhile of making an attempt to walk 
there, but the distance was too great and evening was already closing in. 
We talked about going up stream next day to investigate, but that night 
we had more snow, and I don't think that even the certainty of meeting 
Eskimos would have induced us to wade up that shallow river again, hauling 
a canoe. It was a job we were heartily sick of, and in these low tempera- 
tures it was unpleasantly cold work. Moreover, we were anxious to get 
back to Hodgson's Point and see how Lion was getting on. 

So we turned down stream next day ; a bitterly cold day it was with a 
little snow on the ground, the small quiet bays of the river covered with ice, 
and big collars of ice around every little twig trailing in the water. 

We made good time ; the river was high and we ran the same distance 
down stream to-day that had taken two days' hard work on the way up. 
But it was cold work; we still had to wade occasionally and it was a chilly 
job paddling in wet things in such weather. 

Next day we made good progress and in the afternoon came to the long 
quiet stretch above Observation Hill; it was changed indeed since we were 



©ur first 3ourne? to tbe Coppermine 133 

here last. Summer had ended suddenly and completely, the willows were 
now leafless, and the sedges withered to a dark yellow. 

Such animal life as we saw was mostly on the move ; the ducks had gone, 
the geese were going, every little while we would see and envy big nocks 
southward bound for another very different country that we too knew well. 
The ptarmigan, now nearly all white, were bunching up into big flocks and 
were very restless, making a kind of bluff that they would do the same as the 
geese if they wanted to. Only the muskrats carried on their business the 
same as ever, quite unconcerned by the general migration and the coming of 
winter; they were the true habitants of the country and the Dease River 
was good enough for them at all seasons. 

We camped that night opposite Observation Hill and next morning 
climbed it again to connect up our traverse and look once more over the 
country that we were now more familiar with. We killed another caribou 
this morning close to our camp ; like the first one we got it did not see us and 
came running over the plain right towards us; we waited till it got within 
easy range, then shot it. We camped below the canyon that night ; there 
was quite a marked difference in the general advance of the season on the 
south side of this high ridge. At this camp we made a cache of nearly all 
the food we had left. 

The nights were now getting quite dark and I saw the aurora to-night 
for the first time ; it was extended right across the sky at right angles to the 
magnetic meridian. It was in the form of a spiral like a loosely twisted rope ; 
there was no colour, it looked more like a slightly luminous cloud. A rapid 
movement was running through it from end to end, and I thought at first 
it was some kind of a cloud, some violent atmospheric disturbance, and 
for a few moments I was quite alarmed until I realised what it really 
was. The aurora became very familiar to us later, but I never saw it 
take this particular appearance again. 

September nth was the last day of our journey and it was over a part 
of the river that was the most difficult to navigate. Twice we broke holes 
in the Polaris to-day and twice we had to stop and repair her. One of these 



134 Xanbs tforlorn 

mishaps took place at the same rapid where we had knocked a hole in her 
when on our way up. 

By noon we were at Indian Grave again; we stopped for lunch here, 
giving all our utensils an extra good cleaning and making everything on 




Hodgson's Point and its Builder 

board the Polaris as neat as we could ; following the time-honoured fashion 
of the sea to make port with everything shipshape. 

At last we came to the reach of the river along Hodgson's Point. 
We looked anxiously for the new house which we did not see when 
we expected to; what struck us most was the bareness of Hodgson's 
Point compared to our recollections of what it had been in summer. 
We ran the last rapid above the point and then our house came 
into view looking exceedingly neat and trim. Certainly Lion had 



©ur jfirst 3ournes to tbe Coppermine 



135 



made a fine job of it, and it was a contrast to the other ragged-looking 
shack. 

We landed at a little wharf that Lion had fixed up right at the point ; 
the Aldebaran was carefully stowed away ashore. No one was around; we 




At the End of our Voyage 



went up to the house, and then Lion saw us through the window; he was 
busy papering the inside with the pages of some magazines he had got from 
Hornby. 

It was a joyful home-coming; we could take full satisfaction in the suc- 
cess of our trip now we knew that things had gone well with him also. 

Lion was looking thinner and much bearded ; he said both of us looked 
much sleeker and fatter than when we left and I have no doubt we did; 
certainly we had done our best to become so during the last ten days ! 



136 Xanbs jforlorn 

If the outside of our house looked neat and tidy the inside gave us a 
positive shock of pleasure. Lion had taken infinite pains with his work ; the 
inside was snug, bright, and cheerful. I shall describe it later. His work 
had not been so exciting perhaps as our own, but just as important, and 
carried on, often under adverse circumstances, to the highly successful and 
creditable result we saw. 

We had supper in the new house, Lion doing the honours. It was all 
very bewildering at first and especially strange to meet some one else and to 
hear another's voice. Then Lion's long beard had changed him so much in 
appearance that he looked to be scarcely the same person. The house 
seemed quite spacious after our little tent, and it was a consummate pleasure 
to take our meals again in such a civilised way, sitting on comfortable chairs 
at a real table and without any fear of upsetting things. 

Altogether the evening was somewhat confusing; we had so much 
to tell each other that it was some time before we got a fair idea of our 
respective adventures. 

After seeing us off Lion had gone ahead with his house building. On 
July 29th, the day after we left, the Bear Lake Indians arrived in their York 
boat and Father Rouvier with them. So we had beaten them handsomely 
in crossing the lake as well as coming up the Bear River. Hornby was 
following by canoe with some other Indians and the Father was awaiting 
his arrival to proceed to the Dismal Lakes on his evangelising mission. The 
Bear Lakers went hunting for caribou on the edge of the barrens, and their 
success so got on Francois's mind that he forgot all about his agreement, and 
Lion had considerable difficulty keeping him at all until some of the heavier 
part of the work was done. Hornby arrived on August 10th, and a couple 
of days after he and the Father made a start up the river. Francois left at 
the same time so Lion was now alone at his work. 

About a week later Hornby and some of the Indians came back, and 
the Father and the rest followed in a couple of days. Hornby and the Father 
had got as far as Observation Hill and they had returned to get some rnore 
supplies. The Indians intended to hunt along the southern shore of Dease 



©ur tfirst 3ournes to tbe Coppermine 137 

Bay; most of them were going to return to Fort Norman in their York boat, 
but the Francois and a few other families intended to remain in our vicinity 
all through the winter. 

The Father and Hornby started up the river again on August 23d, and 
since that time Lion had been quite by himself, working at the house and 
hunting a little. He had got two caribou, and had dried some of the meat. 

The season had been much warmer with him than with us; there is a 
very sudden change in climate when the high range of hills to the east of the 
lake is passed, a change that Simpson frequently remarks on and of which 
we had plenty of evidence later on. 



THE TWILIGHT OF THE YEAR 

I SPENT only a couple of days at Hodgson's Point, developing the photos 
we had taken on our trip. Then Lion and I started up the river again 

in the Polaris to make the most we could of the season before the river 
froze; we hoped we might find some caribou around Observation Hill and 
get a supply of meat for winter. I found this trip much more pleasant than 
the first one. The water was deeper, the canoe was lighter, and I was in a 
better physical condition. Best of all there was none of the incessant drive 
that had then been necessary. We could take things easy now and move 
or camp as we pleased. 

We made the trip to Observation Hill in two days' easy work and put 
up our tent at the same place where the Doctor and I had camped on our 
way down the river. But though we hunted far and wide for several days 
we saw no signs of caribou. 

Then we broke camp and paddled up to the end of the quiet stretch 
intending to investigate the East River, as we then called it, but it turned 
cold and we had heavy snow. The river might freeze up any night, so we 
decided to turn back to Hodgson's Point. We had lunch that day under the 
lee of a high sand bank; it was snowing heavily, and while at lunch Lion 
thought he heard the report of a rifle. 

We made our way back to Hodgson's Point slowly, camping twice on the 
way and hunting as we went, but we saw no caribou, which was a great dis- 
appointment ; the Doctor and I had seen so many on our journey from the 

138 



Gbe Gwiligbt of tbe l?ear 139 

divide that I had been quite confident of laying up some meat for winter. 
It was distinctly humiliating to come out on a hunting trip and be reduced 
to living on the remains of the caribou that the Doctor and I had killed a 
week before; the weather had been cold enough to keep the carcass fresh. 

We had a final look around from the top of Observation Hill. Winter 
was now coming on in real earnest ; it was a bright day but the snow on the 
hills was not thawing even in protected places in the sun; the plains were 
covered with snow and the small lakes frozen over. The distant mountains 
behind which lay the Dismal Lakes, mountains which the Doctor and I had 
looked at so earnestly on our first trip up this hill and which were now so 
familiar to us, were dazzling white. 

We camped at Number One Camp on our leisurely journey home, and 
just before we got to Hodgson's Point we noticed some one walking along 
the shore, pack on back, and a couple of dogs loaded with packs following 
him. 

It was Hornby ; he had walked in from where he and the Father had 
been, and the rifle shot that Lion thought he had heard was Hornby's in fact. 
We got back to Hodgson's Point none too soon; the river froze over next 
day; we had utilised the season of navigation to the very last. 

Hornby made his camp near our house and had supper with us. That 
night we had the first one of many pleasant evenings in our snug and com- 
fortable little home, and Hornby told us of his and Father Rouvier's 
adventures. 

It was the latter part of August before they made their way up the 
Dease River and though the water was higher by that time, they made very 
slow progress. Like ourselves they had only a hazy idea of the route to 
Dismal Lakes. They saw the traces of our camp on the sandy beach by 
Hanbury's Kopje and supposed without any question we had gone that way. 
They had a hard struggle to get to the lake, and by the time they got there 
the season was so far advanced they had to give up the idea of going on to 
the Dismal Lakes. Moreover, they met Eskimos in large numbers camped 
near the lake and hunting caribou in the country around, so they had 



140 Xanbs ft or lorn 

nothing to gain by going any farther. We had noticed a small grove of 
spruce on the west side of the lake, the only trees for a long distance around. 
They decided to build a shack there and remain till the Eskimos returned to 
the sea. Hornby had come down to get his own shack ready for winter and 
to make arrangements with the Indians to catch fish for him. He had left 
the Father on quite friendly terms with the Eskimos and well fixed for food, 
as they had shot three caribou. 

It was more than a month before we were settled down to the regular 
and systematic life that we afterwards led in winter quarters, but we got 
our house in better order at once and instituted regular duties. We divided 
these duties of the establishment into cooking, wood-chopping, and hunting, 
and took them in turn for a week at a time. On September 25th we started 
the new regime with myself as cook, Lion as wood-chopper, and the Doctor 
as hunter. 

It was about this time that we saw most of the Bear Lake Indians ; they 
came in from the edges of the woods where they had been hunting caribou 
and set up their teepees on the shores of the bay behind Big Island. They 
spent the next month fishing for white fish with nets and catching them in 
considerable numbers. These were the main food supply of their dogs. 

When Lion and I returned from our trip up the river we found these 
Indians camped around Hodgson's Point, but to our relief they stayed there 
only a few days. Among them was the Francois outfit, quite unabashed 
and perfectly innocent that they had done anything out of the way in leav- 
ing Lion by himself. Francois had killed thirty-two caribou in the course of 
the season and brought us in a good supply of dry and pounded meat in 
return for the rifle we had lent him. 

The total Indian population around our end of the lake was then about 
twenty-five, men, women, and children ; and this was the most we ever saw 
assembled in one place. There was Francois and his family, and Francois's 
brother Modeste and his family. Then there was an Indian that we used to 
call "Squiny, " an evil-looking customer, though I must say his looks were 
the only thing we ever had against him. He had rather a nice, meek, and 



Gbe GwiliQbt of tbe H?ear 



hi 



gentle wife, and several children. There was the Indian woman who worked 
for Hornby, and her family ; I think she was a widow, I never knew her name. 
She was a cheery, energetic woman, quite as effective a worker as any of the 
men and a whole lot more cheerful. She had a boy of about fourteen, 




Bear Lakers Breaking Camp 



Harry we called him, who was a nice lad. Last, but not least, was an old 
chap we called Jacob, his wife and two boys. 

Next to Mrs. Francois, whom we all liked for her quiet ladylike ways, Jacob 
was the chief favourite and most welcome at our house. He never abused our 
hospitality ; he was always cheerful and nearly always amusing. He was 
the only one of the men who would condescend to smile and look happy. 

These people used to come around our house a good deal at first, but 
found that we didn't want anything and that there was very little to be got 
out of us, so they soon went their own ways. The Francois family always 



142 



Xante iforlorn 



considered they had some claim on us and any odd jobs we wanted done in 
the way of curing caribou skins, and so forth, was usually given to them, but 
some of our work went to Jacob too, who was really more reliable. 

None of these people could talk English ; such spoken intercourse as we 




Some of the Bear Lake Indians. Francois Family to Right 



had with them we carried on through Mrs. Francois, who could talk French. 
It usually took the Doctor's and my own combined knowledge of the lan- 
guage (little enough at that) to carry on a conversation: At first the Doctor 
used to tackle the job by himself, but Lion and I would laugh so much at his 
efforts, that he insisted on my taking part as well. It made a more efficient 
combination any way, for while the Doctor could understand much better 
what Mrs. Francois was trying to say I knew more French words than he 
did. Lion kept out of it and so had the laugh all by himself, and indeed it 
was laughable enough. 



Gbe Gwiligbt of tbe H?ear 143 

With the others we had to fall back on signs and the very few Indian 
words that we picked up. In the matter of signs Jacob was the most fluent. 
He would come in and sit down quietly in a corner, and after we had given 
him a cup of tea he would start making all kinds of curious and compli- 
cated flourishes. Usually we gathered from them what he wanted, but 
one day he had me completely at a loss to know what it was all about. He 
looked unusually mournful, his gestures were wilder and weirder than ever 
before; at last he gave up the job before my hopeless stupidity and sadly 
left the house. It was sometime later before I knew what he wanted on 
this occasion. He had had a row with his wife, and wished me to go and 
smooth things out! 

I should say here that we saw none of that harsh treatment of their 
women supposed to be the custom of the Northern Indians. Hard labour 
by every one is the stern rule of the North, even the children and young dogs 
must help out as well as they can when the family is on the march. But we 
never saw that the women had any undue share of the work, or that they 
were treated as mere beasts of burden. On the contrary the sexes seemed 
to be on the basis of perfect equality in everything that concerned their 
domestic life. 

What the Indians in turn thought of us I do not know, certainly we did 
things very differently from any white man they had seen before in that 
country, but what their real opinion was I have no idea. 

The first two weeks in October were fairly mild, the season was milder 
with us than it had been with Simpson in 1838. The river, which had 
frozen across on our return, opened up enough to let us get down to the lake 
by canoe ; so on October 2d, Lion and I made a trip to old Fort Confidence 
to have a look at those remains. 

This place was built originally by Ritch of the Dease and Simpson 
expedition in 1837, and served as their quarters for two winters. It was 
reconstructed in 1848 and used by Sir John Richardson that winter when 
returning from his search for Sir John Franklin between the Mackenzie 
and Coppermine rivers ; and again the succeeding year by Dr. Rae. 



144 Xante f or lorn 

The buildings themselves were still standing in 1902 when Hanbury 
passed through Bear Lake but were destroyed by fire a few years later. 
Only their outline is now discernible and the four chimneys of the central 
building, standing like monoliths. 

We spent a night there, pitching our tent right on the old site. It was 



Camp at Old Fort Confidence 

pleasant to get the extensive view of the lake again, the sun set wild and 
mournful that night, well befitting the season and the place. We returned 
to our own more cheerful quarters next day, calling on Hornby as we passed 
his house. 

The weather soon turned cold, and by October 20th the river was frozen 
up, but very little snow had fallen as yet. As soon as the ice was strong 
enough to travel on Hornby intended to return to Lake Rouvier, as we now 
called the lake at which they had built their shack. Lion and I decided to 
go up with him ; we wanted to get some experience of winter travelling and 



£be Swiligbt of tbe l?ear 145 

see how we would get on hauling our toboggans. These were the ordinary 
dog-sleds of the country, short and heavy, quite unsuited for that kind of 
work, but the only thing we had been able to get. 

Hornby had two toboggans, three dogs to each and an Indian boy to 
help him. We hitched our own toboggans behind his, the ice on the river 



The First Journey with Dogs 

gave a splendid travelling surface, and though the lower rapids were open 
there was enough ice along the shore and snow on the ground to pass them 
without trouble. As we ascended the river we had constant evidence how 
much more severe the climate is to the north-east of Great Bear Lake. 

The journey was a thoroughly pleasant one; we had fine weather, not 
too cold, the thermometer as yet going only to zero at night time. We 
made good time; it was a treat to pass at a swinging trot some of those 
places that had cost us so much time and labour when we made the ascent of 
the river by canoe. It took us only four days to make the trip in spite 
of having to follow all the windings of the river. The shallow head 



146 



Xante jforlorn 



waters were frozen right to the bottom ; Sandy Creek was solid ice clear 
through. 

Above Hanbury's Kopje we came on the track of an Eskimo sled and 
pushed on fully expecting to find the Eskimos at the lake. 

We found Father Rouvier looking well and cheerful, but learned to 




The Shack Built by Father Rouvier and Hornby 



our disappointment that the Eskimos had all gone the day before, 
heading north for the sea coast again. We spent a day with the Father, 
making a short trip over the hills to the north of the lake, but the weather 
was too thick to see much of anything. That part of the country was 
bad enough in summer ; in early winter with the sun only a short distance 
above the horizon and the air full of frozen mist the outlook was miserable 
indeed. 

The Father intended to return to Great Bear Lake at once with the 
dogs and the Indian boy. Hornby had got the Eskimos to make him a big 



Gbe Ewiltabt of tbe U)ear 147 

sledge and the Father loaded this up with both the toboggans and a lot of 
stuff that he and Hornby had got from the Eskimos. 

Hornby's plans were to remain at Lake Rouvier and try some trapping, 
and the Father intended to return a little later and bring him back. 

Lion and I decided we would haul our own toboggans back to Hodgson's 
Point and hunt as we went. 

On October 31st, we broke camp and made an early start; the weather 
had been turning colder rapidly. To-day was quite sharp, the thermometer 
had been —17 in the night. We had a pleasant breakfast with Hornby 
and the Father then started out across the lake. 

We had about one hundred and twenty pounds on each toboggan. Our 
equipment was then by no means so well worked out as we had it by next 
spring. We were still using our Johnston's sleeping bags which we had lined 
with caribou skin ; these were bulky and heavy and we had an unnecessarily 
large food supply with us. But we made good time on the ice, the tobog- 
gans slid along down stream almost by themselves. We camped that night 
below Hanbury's Kopje again; the Father with his big sledge and six dogs 
overtook us just as we got there. 

He continued his journey down stream next day, while Lion and I went 
west to Simpson's Point hoping to see some caribou on those plains. 

That place of pleasant recollections was very different now to what it 
had been when the Doctor and I camped there last. The hills and plains 
were covered with snow; there was a bitterly cold wind blowing and the 
air was full of rime. Of caribou there were no signs whatever, the whole 
aspect of things was so utterly bleak and miserable that we decided to 
make our way farther down the river. We moved our camp about five 
miles down stream that afternoon, and made an early start again next 
morning. 

The days were very short now and it was necessary to camp about four 
in the afternoon. But one can always break camp in the dark, so we had 
to turn out very early to get in a fair day's work. We usually turned out at 
4 A.M. or shortly after; an unhappy proceeding it was to turn out of our nice 



148 Xan&s forlorn 

warm sleeping bags into a pitch darkness or at best unsympathising stars. 
It took about a couple of hours to get breakfast and break camp. 

We made good headway till noon ; then it began to snow. This freshly 
fallen snow made the hauling very heavy and our foothold on the ice more 
difficult than ever. 

Things got worse and worse with us ; we had to rest every few hundred 
yards, then every hundred, finally it would take a severe effort to move those 
toboggans fifty yards or less between rests. At last we could positively get 
no farther ; we put up our tent on the top of a high bank of the river where 
there were a few spruce trees. 

The wind rose strong from the north-west increasing to a regular gale, 
the temperature dropped suddenly till it reached — 4 . There was wood 
enough, but in that strong wind the fire did us no good ; we got tea as well 
as we could and turned into our sleeping-bags hoping the tent would hold, 
and for better times next day. 

In spite of the gale the tent held all right and better times came ; next 
day was perfectly lovely, bright, cold, and clear; we hauled those toboggans 
nearly twenty miles and camped that afternoon on the shore opposite the 
East River, near the same place where we had had lunch and heard Hornby's 
shot more than a month before. 

We had intended to make another attempt to follow up this river and 
we did ascend it for a few miles, but evidently it ran through so much the 
same kind of country as the main branch of the Dease River that we gave 
it up as lacking in interest. It was on this little stream that Stefannson had 
made his winter quarters the preceding year; we saw no trace of them, but 
possibly they were farther up the river than we went. 

There were no signs of caribou anywhere, and we were heartily sick of 
this toboggan hauling as a form of amusement so decided to get back to 
Hodgson's Point as quick as we could. 

We got to the canyon that afternoon at 4 P.M. ; this is about twelve miles 
by the river. The hauling had been fairly good and encouraged by a good 
tea we determined to try and make Hodgson's Point that same night. The 



Gbe Gwiligbt of tbe H>ear 149 

moon was old enough to give a fair light, but it began to snow and the 
going became so heavy that by the time we got to No. i Camp, some 
four miles below the canyon, we were completely done up. We had not 
enough energy left even to light a fire or pitch the tent. We spread it out 
on the snow, unrolled and crawled into our sleeping-bags, threw one flap of 
the tent over us, and fell asleep at once. 

It was daylight before we woke up, a couple of inches of snow had 
fallen during the night, and we lay snug and warm under it, after one of the 
finest sleeps I ever had in my life. 

The going was terribly heavy to-day ; Lion had hurt his knee falling on a 
boulder in the river the night before and I had strained some sinew in my 
instep. It took us till one that afternoon to get to Indian Grave, and al- 
though we had only about three miles farther to go we had to abandon the 
heavier of the two toboggans here. 

Even with both of us hitched to the smaller and lighter one we found it 
hard enough in our condition and we were thoroughly glad to get home. It 
looked unusually spacious and comfortable that night; our two candles 
seemed to give a perfect flood of light and a good meal at a civilised table 
was especially delightful. 

The Doctor was well and cheerful ; we heard that the Father had arrived 
only the day before. Notwithstanding the assistance of the dogs his trip 
had been almost as arduous as our own. 

My week of cook had .come around again, but it was a posi- 
tive pleasure to turn out and light the fire after our last ten days* ex- 
periences. 

The Doctor volunteered to bring in the abandoned toboggan; Lion and 
I agreed most cheerfully, and awaited developments. About 2 p.m. we 
heard him coming down the river, panting like a freight locomotive hitting 
a heavy grade, sweating like a horse, and smelling, as he said, like a sheep; 
he was wearing Stanfield's heavy wool underwear, and his description was a 
singularly apt one. After that experience the Doctor's opinion of toboggan 
hauling agreed perfectly with our own. I could express it truthfully only 



150 Xante jforlorn 

by offending that convention which permits more latitude in private speech 
than in a written record. 

The Father made the journey to Lake Rouvier a few days after this 
with the dogs and toboggan, and the Doctor went with him. They met 
Hornby at Hanbury's Kopje. He had got so tired of the trapping job that 
he had made himself a little sledge and was on his way back to Bear Lake 
when the others found him. I should add that after this Hornby's opinion 
of sleigh hauling was curiously like our own. 

They all returned together; Father Rouvier and Hornby took up their 
quarters in Hornby's house and we settled into a regular and systematic life 
that lasted five months with scarcely a break. 



VI 

A WINTER IN THE ARCTIC 

OUR house was about 14 ft. by 1 6 ft. ; it appeared low from the outside 
but the floor was some six inches below ground level, and there was 
plenty of head room. The low floor was a good point under the 
circumstances as the soil was gravelly and there was no possibility of water 
draining in from anywhere. 

It was built of spruce logs, " chinked" with moss and caribou hair, of 
which there had been great quantities lying around where the Hodgsons' 
outfit and their Indians had been curing skins. 

It was thoroughly well mudded inside and out, and the inside was 
papered with the leaves of illustrated magazines that Hornby had given us. 
The floor was made of wooden blocks stamped in on end and all the cracks 
filled up with fine sand. 

The roof was made of small spruce poles, chinked with caribou hair, 
then a layer of dry sand. Above all was spread the waterproof canvas we 
had brought for possible canoe-building purposes. 

The fireplace was across one corner of the house ; this most important 
feature was a regular triumph. Lion had departed from the usual custom 
of the country which makes the fireplace small and narrow, the logs to be 
burned standing on end; these fireplaces are an awful nuisance, besides 
being very inefficient. Lion's fireplace was a regular wide and deep one, 
with a big slab of quartzite for a mantelpiece. The chimney drew beauti- 
fully, smoke was quite unknown in our house. 

151 



152 



Xante Jforlorn 



We had two small windows that we had brought all the way from Fort 
Simpson; one of these looked towards the south, the other to the west. 
The door opened on the south side of the house at the corner diagonally 
opposite to the fireplace. 

Lion had made a good table and we had four folding wooden chairs 



HUE !E jifffl f>"3ffcl 




l i 


si 


fcoMi 




rs*^ ^.bhBxM j 




4F 8 vK 

_>- — -» 


h 





Hodgson's Point at the Beginning of Winter 



that we had got on the " Mackenzie River. " Along the wall near the fire- 
place was a row of shelves ; this was our kitchen. We kept the pots and pans 
on the lower shelves, the table utensils above them, and on top was a long 
shelf with a row of tin biscuit-boxes in which we kept various provi- 
sions: flour, sugar, rolled oats, beans, dried apples, etc. We had two 
cots; the original idea had been to make bunks, but instead of this 
Lion made a hammock for himself which he swung along the roof-beam. 
This was a good idea and gave us a maximum of effective room in the 
house. 



H Wintcv in tbe arctic 



153 



Our meals were arranged on a schedule to give a minimum trouble to 
the cook, maximum daylight to the hunter and wood-chopper, and maximum 
comfort to all. We had breakfast at 9.30 A.M., dinner at 3.30 p.m., and a 
light supper at 8 p.m. 




The Fireplace 



For breakfast we had oatmeal porridge ; occasionally bacon and beans, 
but more often some kind of hash made of caribou or ptarmigan with 
desiccated potatoes, bannock, and tea. 

Dinner consisted of soup ; caribou steaks or stews, or roast ptarmigan, 
with desiccated potatoes ; bannock and stewed apples. 

Supper was simply bannock and chocolate. 

For our Sunday morning breakfasts we had coffee instead of tea and 
hominy instead of oatmeal. To the Doctor and myself the weekly coffee 



154 



Xan&a iforlorn 



was a great treat, but Lion wasn't so enthusiastic about it; and I think that 
I was the only one who considered the hominy decidedly superior to the 
rolled oats. Sunday dinner was much the same as any other, but at supper 
that night we had maple syrup with our bannock. 




The Kitchen 



Our bannocks we baked in a reflector baker before the open fire and we 
actually got to like them better than the usual bread of civilisation as we 
found when we got back. 

We all became quite expert as cooks, and the various soups, stews, and 
hashes we could make from caribou and ptarmigan with beans, desiccated 
potatoes and onions and erbswurst, would compare more than favourably 
with the productions of any highly paid chef. There was no reason indeed 
why they should not; we had the best of materials and what we lacked in 



a Winter in tbe Hrctic 



155 



mere experience was more than compensated for by our ability to approach 
the subject quite untrammelled by tradition ; and I trust that our intelligence, 
at least, was of a higher order than that of the average professional cook. 
At first there was considerable difference in the results of our various 




Lien's Corner 



cooking, but later on the Doctor's and my own approximated so closely in 
character that it was sometimes hard to distinguish our bannocks apart, or 
some of the various forms of hashes we made. Lion's cooking had an in- 
dividuality all its own to the very last, especially his bannocks. I don't 
mean to say it was either better or worse than ours, but simply that it was 
different. 

Lion certainly excelled in the matter of stews; the Doctor in hashes. 
I like to think that my own soups were distinguished for their peculiar 
excellency, but this is a daring supposition when those of both of the others 



156 Xanbs forlorn 

were so exceedingly good. Our meals were always leisurely, and certainly 
we always did them justice. We all read at meals ; our own stock of litera- 
ture was very limited, but Hornby had quite a collection, cheap reprints of 
mostly good novels, which we read and re-read I don't know how many 
times. 

Among the few books we had brought with us was Michelet's History 
of France , which I had borrowed from the Hudson Bay Co.'s factor at Fort 
Simpson. This served me for " breakfast reading" all the winter. I read 
that book through several times to my passing interest, but to very little 
permanent benefit. The Doctor also read it most assiduously. It was in two 
volumes and he would read one while I pored over the other ; then we would 
exchange and re-exchange them. Whether he knows less about the early 
history of France now than I do I would hesitate to conjecture. I don't 
think Lion ever tackled this book; had it been in three volumes he might 
have done so. 

At dinner time, in a more relaxed frame of mind, I always read some of 
the lighter literature we had. When we had gone through Hornby's books 
several times we tackled a heterogeneous collection of trash left by Hodgson : 
old magazines and various more or less lurid novels, dirty, torn, and with 
pages missing. Late in the winter when anything new was a real God-send 
I found a quite simply and prettily told story called Sunshine and Snows; 
the front pages were missing, and to this day I don't know the author's name. 

The hunter had no duties around the house, he was free to start out at 
once when breakfast was over. It was the wood-chopper's job to dry the 
dishes when the cook washed them ; as soon as this was done he too would 
leave the house on his day's work, giving the cook a clear field to clean up and 
attend to his various chores. These were usually finished about noon; by 
that time the cook would have water brought up from the river, wood 
brought in from outside, and all in the house clear for dinner. Then he was 
free to attend to his own personal jobs of washing, mending, and sewing. 

The wood-chopper would start out with a toboggan and axe, chop down 
the dry dead spruce that are always mixed in a greater or less proportion 



a Minter in tbeHrctic 157 

among the live trees in those northern woods. We each had our own parti- 
cular districts which we were satisfied excelled in these dry spruce ; we were 
always quite welcome to each other's districts, but generally stayed in our 
own. The first two days of the wood-chopper's work were usually spent 
cutting down and hauling in the trees, and the next two or three in sawing 
them up and splitting them. It was always a point of honour for the wood- 
chopper to leave a little more wood on hand than he found, so our wood-pile 
kept getting larger all the winter. Besides this each wood-chopper had his 
private stock of logs stacked up around the house ready to saw; a reserve 
against bad weather, or in case he should want to hunt. My own particular 
stock of logs was especially large ; it never was used at all and it jars on me 
yet to think of some of those fine logs that I hauled in with such care and 
labour used by Father Rouvier and Hornby the following winter. About 
four or five days a week was all the wood-chopper really needed to work ; the 
rest of the time he usually hunted. There was a tacit understanding that 
the wood-chopper should attend to any flocks of ptarmigan that came 
around the house but Lion was the only one who observed this faithfully. 

The hunter usually started out about II A.M., and made long trips in 
different directions, a different way each day. We had snow-shoe trails 
strung all over the country for a radius of ten miles, and under our thorough 
patrolling we missed very little of what went on among the animals. 

The commonest tracks we saw were those of wolves, wolverines, and 
foxes ; sometimes we would get a glimpse of a wolf, but they were exceedingly 
shy. I saw a couple of white foxes together on one occasion; none of us 
ever saw a wolverine. 

Caribou were really very scarce ; only a few small bands left their tracks 
in our vicinity through all the winter months. Perhaps the Hodgson party 
hunting around here the previous winter may have frightened them away, 
or it may have been merely the chance of their movements, always very 
uncertain and capricious. 

Bird life was more abundant than one would expect in that rigorous 
country, ptarmigan were plentiful all the time, usually in large flocks, and 



158 Xanfcs Jforlorn 

as a food supply came next to the caribou in importance. A few ravens were 
seen all through the winter; also hawks, apparently of several kinds, that 
preyed on the ptarmigan. 

I saw a lovely big snow-white owl one day ; it let me get quite close to it 
and I studied it for some time before it finally got nervous under my scrutiny 
and napped away, showing a tremendous spread of wing. 

Then we had whisky -jacks, bold robbers they were. At first we liked 
to see them around, but they made such havoc among our supplies of meat, 
in spite of its frozen condition, that we were obliged to wage war on them. 
They were exceedingly pretty and fearless birds ; I have known them come 
right into a tent where we have been at meals. 

Last of all three chickadees kept us company right through the winter. 
We always plucked and cleaned the ptarmigan as soon as we got them, and 
kept them hung from a cross arm between two trees. Sometimes we had 
more than fifty ptarmigan on stock, seldom fewer than twenty or thirty; 
of course they froze as hard as rocks, but the chickadees pecked around 
them all the time and much preferred them to any of the other abundant 
scraps they had to choose from. We never missed what they took, but the 
voracious whisky- jacks would soon pick a ptarmigan to the bones. 

During the months of October and November ptarmigan was our only 
fresh meat, for those two months we killed on an average five ptarmigan a 
day. At the end of November we had a stock of more than fifty frozen 
ptarmigan all ready plucked and cleaned. 

Lion was the most indefatigable ptarmigan hunter. We owed many a 
good supper of roast ptarmigan to him that neither the Doctor nor myself 
would have troubled to go after ; he must have killed at least two-thirds of 
our supply. For hunting ptarmigan we used a Remington .22 rifle. 

About the end of November a small herd of caribou came into our 
vicinity and we got six in two days. These were our main supply of fresh 
meat for the winter, and though we saw tracks of small roving bands they 
were few and far between, and we never shot any more caribou till the 
following March. 



H THIUnter in tbe arctic 159 

But we could always get ptarmigan, and always had all the fresh meat 
we needed. As Lion once said, " Our best friends in that country were the 
dead spruce trees and the ptarmigan. " 

Father Rouvier and Hornby got no caribou and seldom tried to hunt 
the ptarmigan. They had plenty of dried meat which they had got from 
the Indians and they caught lots of big lake trout through a hole in the ice. 
These were fine fish running from twenty to twenty-five pounds in weight 
and excellent eating. 

We did not tackle the fishing proposition very seriously, much preferring 
to hunt caribou ; but Lion made an attempt at fishing through the ice. His 
lines were set far in the bay, evidently not so good a place as near Big Island 
where the others had theirs, but that was too far to go, and he met with 
poor success. We had a stock of white fish that we had got from the 
Indians ; these are fine fish, but none of us seemed to care for fish when we 
could get caribou hash, and if the cook sometimes served fish for a change 
the silence was usually so expressive that he finally got discouraged and 
our stock of white fish was used for dog food next spring. 

By three in the afternoon the hunter was back and the wood-chopper 
had finished his work and cleaned up. 

Dinner was the chief and most pleasant event of the day and the 
meal with which the cook took most trouble. As soon as it was ready he 
would light another candle; except from 3.30 p.m. till about 9 p.m., we 
used only one. Our eyes had got so accustomed to subdued light that 
these two candles always seemed a brilliant illumination. 

The table was in a corner of the room alongside my cot ; it was amply 
large, made of some old flooring we had got at Fort Simpson, part of the 
same house that our windows had belonged to. It had been painted first 
blue, then a coat of yellow on top, and enough of both colours was left to 
make the decorative scheme of our table cheerful and original. After we 
had finished dinner, the table cleared, and the dishes washed, we put on a 
table-cloth that Lion had made of some blue serge cloth he had got in trade 
from Hornby. 



i6o Xanbs jforlorn 

Then we would all write up our diaries and after that important job 
was finished, we played three-handed bridge. 

We had only a couple of packs of cards with us, and they went through 
various stages of increasing dirtiness. After a few weeks' use, hearts would 
easily be confused with diamonds, or clubs with spades. Then it got difficult 
to tell any of the suits from each other, or face cards from spots; and the 
last stage was reached when it took close study to distinguish the backs of 
the cards from the fronts. Lion set to work one day and washed the cards 
carefully with a moist soapy cloth ; the results were most gratifying, our cards 
looked as good as new to us and entered on another long spell of usefulness. 

When Hornby was staying with us we played auction bridge, the Doctor 
and Hornby against Lion and me. Hornby was a brilliant, but somewhat 
erratic player, and to our occasional joy he never knew when to stop bidding. 
We even taught the Father to play "wisk" as he called it. He was very 
conservative in his play, and was so fond of finessing that it often led to 
astonishing results. 

We also used to play chess after a fashion. Hornby and I would have 
great contests, both playing and working out chess problems. By his own 
account there was no problem that he failed to solve when at his own house, 
but on the journey up to ours he would somehow forget the moves. The 
Father played chess also, very seriously, and even worse than Hornby and 
myself. We had a small folding leather board at our house, the men were 
made of celluloid chips with the rank stamped on them. Hornby and the 
Father made a wonderful set for themselves out of wood ; they alone knew the 
difference between a knight and a queen, and to our less experienced eyes 
it seemed that what were pawns one day were bishops or castles the next. 
This may have accounted for Hornby's success at the problems when he 
worked them out on his own board. Our chess playing may not have been 
scientific, but it gave us all lots of fun. 

All November and most of December the weather was very uniform ; the 
minimum temperature was about— 20°. For a few hours in the course 
of the day it would rise some 10 or 15 degrees above the minimum. On 




The Author in his Corner 



161 



1 62 Xan&s Jforlorn 

November nth, the thermometer went down to — 36 , a minimum that was 
not reached again till December 22 d when the temperature fell rapidly and 
the grand froid of winter began. 

In November and December the weather was mostly dull and cloudy, 
with an incessant light snowfall which amounted to very little in the 
aggregate. At the end of December the weather turned clear and bright 
and was commonly so until the following July. 

Our winter quarters were some twenty-five miles north of the Arctic 
Circle. We actually saw the sun for the last time on December 9th, and 
for the first time on January 1, 191 2. It was not visible at our house 
between November 26, 191 1, and January 9, 191 2. 

Christmas Day came on a Monday, and as Lion happened to be cook for 
that week he had the responsibility of the Christmas dinner. We had been 
reserving an Arctic hare for this occasion, the first and only Arctic hare we 
ever saw around the Dease River. Lion surpassed himself in making a plum 
pudding ; he served this with blueberry jam that he had made in the sum- 
mer. It was a most successful feast. Hornby and the Father were welcome 
guests, and after dinner we had Teshierpi toddy and a great game of "twenty- 
one, " using squares of Peter's chocolate for stakes. We had served out an 
allowance of this all around, and Lion and the Father cleaned the rest of us 
out. In conclusion we had a grand supper of smoked caribou tongues, the 
great delicacy of the north and of which the Father was particularly fond. 
So closed what was really one of the most pleasant Christmas days that 
ever I spent. 

After Christmas the weather turned very cold ; the coldest spell we had 
was from January 9th to January 14th, when the minimum readings were as 
follows: — 57 , — 51 , — 56 , — 56 , — 59 , — 51 . From our experience I would 
call that climate in winter a rather placid one. We had high winds occasion- 
ally and drifting snow, usually at night, but I do not recall a single day on 
which the weather was bad enough to prevent the hunter making his 
rounds. The barrens to the east of us were evidently subject to much 
worse gales. 



H Winter in tbe Hrctic 



163 



With the intense cold at Christmas the spruce trees were frozen solid 
and their stiff springy motion in a wind was very curious after the usual 
graceful swaying. 

Our house was delightfully warm and snug; we let the fire out at night 




Our Xmas Party. Left to Right: Lion, Father Rouvier, the Doctor, Myself. 



time, but it was only in the coldest weather that the temperature would go 
below freezing point before lighting it again next morning. The ventilation 
was perfect ; we controlled this with some holes bored in the door and wooden 
plugs ; the air in that little shack was always as pure as the most fastidious 
hygienic crank could wish ; indeed we were in this respect far better than 
in the most civilised houses. 

Our water supply we got from the river; there was a deep stretch just 
off the point, between two rapids, and we kept a water-hole open in the ice 
all through the winter. At the beginning of April the ice on this stretch 



1 64 



Olanbs forlorn 



was over 6 ft. thick. We did not measure it on the lake; it may have been 
even thicker there. 

On the whole the winter passed most pleasantly; I liked the regular 
systematic life we led and its varied duties. It was most agreeable, for 




>*m$ 




Wk 



Hodgson's Point in the Middle of April 



instance, after having turned out every morning for a week to light the 
fire and get breakfast, to lie lazily in bed and watch another man do it, and 
at last to get up leisurely when breakfast was all ready and the house 
pleasantly warm. Then to leave the table and let the others clean up the 
dishes, to put on one's snow-shoes and start off for a fifteen-mile tramp. 

One always began the hunting week with the highest hopes ; week after 
week might pass without a sign of any caribou, but that did not prevent the 
hunter from having the most enthusiastic expectations the first day or so. 
Towards the end of the week one's confidence began to break down before 




Lion 



165 



1 66 Xanbs if or lorn 

the persistent absence of any game; and at last, when one's wood- 
chopping week began, it was almost a relief to start in on some real 
and productive work. There at least we got what we started out after; 
the physical exercise was varied and interesting, and called for a 
manual skill which it was a constant source of pleasure to exercise and 
improve. 

After two weeks of exercise in the open one was quite ready to start in 
again on the more restful job of cook. 

And so it went: each job was a foil to the other, each had its own 
advantages and came as a constantly pleasing contrast 

Since October we had seen very little of the Indians and from the end 
of November till the end of January we saw nothing at all. Then Frangois 
and his brother Modeste came in one day and we learned that they had been 
hunting farther west. They had had a pretty hard time and some of them 
had lost their dogs by starvation. We gave them some supplies and they 
went back to where they had left their camp. We heard later that they got 
a fair number of caribou thereafter and were in no further want for the rest 
of the winter, though some of the others were not so lucky. 

About this time Hornby and the Doctor decided they would try to make 
a trip to Fort Norman. 

Two mails come into that post in the course of the winter, and one leaves 
for the south. The first mail packet arrives in January, and leaves early in 
February. The next arrives about the beginning of April. The mails are 
carried by dog sled and forwarded from post to post ; letters only are brought 
in by these packets. We hoped to get some mail and to send out letters by 
the south-bound mail packet. 

Hornby had only two dogs ; the prospects of their ever getting very far 
didn't look particularly promising to Lion and me, but they loaded up their 
toboggan and we saw them start from Hornby's house, watching them make 
their way slowly across the lake till they were out of sight behind Big Island. 
On January 27th, they turned up again, having found it too difficult a job 



a Minter in tbe arctic 



167 



with their limited dog power, and they had wisely turned back at the long 
traverse to Gros Cap. 

A month later some of the Indians decided to make a trip to the post 
and Hornby went with them. They left on February 27th. 

Our plans for the spring were now fairly well laid out ; Francois had got 




Father Rouvier 



together a pretty good team of dogs, and he agreed to come and work for a 
month as soon as the Indians got back from Fort Norman. 

Hornby was anxious to make a trip to the coast and we agreed to join 
forces. We hoped that he might be able to get some more dogs at Fort 
Norman, and we expected to have moved most of our stuff for the journey 
as far as the house on Lake Rouvier, by the time he returned. 

About the middle of March, Lion and I decided to make a hunting trip 
up the Dease River again. A band of caribou had been in the vicinity and 
we had killed one near No. 1 Camp. We hoped to be able to lay up some 
depots of food for the dogs when we started the journeys to Lake Rouvier. 



1 68 



Xante fforlorn 



We had no dogs at all now, and had to haul our own toboggans again ; 
but our equipment was much better selected; we took a lighter load and 
only one toboggan, so that it was comparatively easy work. We hunted 
around for several days in the vicinity of Observation Hill, but the only 




Father Rouvier Leaving Hodgson's Point 



caribou tracks we saw were nearer our own house. We had very cold 
weather on this trip, for two nights in succession the thermometer was down 
to — 50 and with considerable wind at the same time. This was the only 
occasion when we had wind with such low temperatures; camping and 
hunting was a far from pleasant job under the circumstances. Our trip was 
not productive, but it gave us a certain amount of amusement and interest, 
and in spite of the severe conditions it removed the unpleasant impression 
left by our first experiment at sledge hauling and winter travel. 



a Winter in tbe arctic 169 

On March 24th, the Indians returned from Fort Norman; they brought 
a train of dogs from the Mission for Father Rouvier, who wanted to return 
to the post. One of the Indians was returning with him; Hornby had 
decided to remain at the post until they arrived and to come back again 
with this Indian. 

The Indians brought us our mail ; this was the red-letter day of the whole 
winter; we now had news of our friends up to the beginning of November. 
How welcome those letters were, and how carefully read. I was lucky in 
some correspondents who wrote regularly and gave detailed accounts of 
those doings that most interested me. 

The Father left on March 28th. We were very sorry to say good-bye to 
him. He had added greatly to the pleasure of our life in winter quarters, 
and it was with sincere regret that we saw him off on his journey back to 
the Mission. 



VII 

SPRING JOURNEYS 

T T T ITH the coming of milder weather and bright sunny days, our life 
y y in winter quarters began to seem rather lazy ; it was time to 
wake up from our long winter's sleep and to start on our travels 
again. 

Francois came on April 4th and pitched his teepee close to our house; 
we had arranged that his brother Modeste also should make one trip to 
Lake Rouvier. 

On April 6th, the Doctor, Francois, and Modeste started on the first 
trip; they had two toboggans, with three dogs to each, and a total load of 
nearly 500 lbs. on the two toboggans. 

I went as far as the canyon with them ; travelling was most pleasant now, 
the surface of the snow was at its very best, the days were long, bright, and 
placid, and the temperatures pleasant, neither thawing nor too cold. They 
took only six days to make the round trip, but with the good conditions for 
travelling they were able to make a shorter route over the plains, avoiding 
the big bend of the river. They were all suffering from snow-blindness when 
they got back ; they had glasses but didn't use them until too late. This was 
the only occasion that any of our party were troubled in that way. 

Modeste couldn't make another trip for us, he had his family to look 
after: Francois wouldn't, although we were looking after his family for him; 
so far as we could make out he objected to going into a country where there 
weren't any trees. After considering the matter for a day or two he agreed 

170 



Spring 3ourne$6 



171 



to lend us his dogs, and on April 14th the Doctor and Lion started up the 
river with another load. 

On April 17th, Hornby arrived from Fort Norman; he had been able to 
get only two more dogs, which was rather a disappointment, but we hoped 




Lion and the Doctor Start for Lake Rouvier 



to get enough from the Indians to make up two teams. He also brought 
some mail that had come by the second winter packet, and we got news 
from the outside world up to the beginning of January. 

The Doctor and Lion got back on April 19th, after a pleasant and suc- 
cessful trip. The sun was getting so strong now that they were both much 
sunburnt. 

We had still a considerable quantity of stuff to send up and decided that 
Hornby and the Doctor should make another trip ; the Doctor to remain at the 
house on Lake Rouvier until we joined him. On April 226. they started ; 



172 



Xanbs jforlorn 



we had five dogs now, and on this trip the toboggan was loaded with over 
500 lbs. of stuff, the heaviest load we ever hauled on one toboggan. 

Hornby took five days to make the round trip ; he actually came back 
from the lake in two days only, but he was sitting on the toboggan all the time 
and his five dogs took him along at a fast trot. He got back on April 28th. 




Francois' Tepee at Hodgson's Point 



April 30th was the day set for the grand start. 

The Francois family were still around Hodgson's Point and on the 
day before we started some of the other Indians came in too. They had 
been hunting on the north shore of Bear Lake and had suffered pretty 
hard times, losing many of their dogs by starvation, and one woman had 
died. 

Hornby had decided to take the boy, Harry, along with him; this 
gave him a travelling companion and assistant, and left him free to follow 
his own devices when we got to the Coppermine in case he wanted to go 



Spring 3ourne£s 



173 



on to the sea at once, or to return to the Dease River before the snow 
melted. 

We now had seven dogs altogether ; the little I have said about dogs 
hitherto must not be taken as a measure of their importance in the general 




From left to right: "Potash" "Punch" "Geoff" "Nigger" 



scheme of our life; I have simply been waiting an opportunity to do them 
the best justice I can. 

One's experience of the dogs of civilisation is quite inadequate to 
give any idea of how a dog's character may develop and how acute 
his intelligence may become under the stern conditions of life in the 
North. Hard work, strict discipline, and rigorous treatment develop 
character in dogs no less than in men. Certainly I had never before 
seen dogs of such pronounced individualities as those we had now got 



174 



Xante tforlorn 



together or who in their traits and behaviours so exactly resembled certain 
types of men. 

"Potash" was the senior dog of the crowd. He was big, rather thin 
and spare, but wiry and strong. He was a wily and knowing old brute; he 




The Unwilling "Potash 



understood what was said to him to an extraordinary degree and knew the 
meaning of every move we made about camp. His memory for places where 
caribou has been killed was most lively; he loved to go back and visit the 
remains no matter how much he might have eaten in camp; in consequence, 
we had to keep him tied all the time we were camped. He never did any 
more work in harness than he had to, but he was a valuable dog as leader; 
he would obey the voice and go as directed, consequently we usually put him 
as the leader of the first sleigh. It was always very funny to see Potash 



Spring 3ourne^ 175 

coming to be harnessed up. At first he would pretend not to hear when he 
was called, and mighty well the old dog knew when he was called to be 
harnessed up and when any food was being handed out. When the sudden 
deafness was of no further avail he would creep along stiffly and painfully 
his head bent down, and his tail between his legs, one foot dragging slowly 
after the other, his whole attitude humble and suppliant, every movement 
betokening extreme reluctance and bodily weakness. 

11 Punch" was the next in seniority; by seniority I don't mean age, but 
general importance. He was a big handsome yellow dog, always cheerful 
and friendly, always willing and working his hardest. In camp his be- 
haviour was perfect; he could be absolutely trusted not to steal anything, 
no matter how tempting and accessible it might be. 

Potash and Punch were Hornby's two dogs; they had always been great 
friends with us at our house, indeed they liked it much better than their own. 
Potash particularly was always most unwilling to leave the place. 

" Cuchar" was one of the dogs we had got from Francois. He was a 
great big black dog with long hair, and eyes like a bear ; he was strong as 
a pony, the strongest of all the dogs, and the most valuable as a worker. 
He was rather inclined to be savage at first and we had to be careful not to be 
bitten when harnessing him up ; as time went on he got tamer, but he never 
showed any particular affection for us. He was as stoical and as undemon- 
strative as his late master. He was a most inveterate and bare-faced thief ; 
we had to keep him tied up all the time, but he would make the most daring 
use of such few opportunities as came his way. Many a beating he got for 
his thievishness, but he didn't mind beatings in the least. I have seen one 
of us take a stick to him for having stolen something and Cuchar would be 
trying to steal something else while he was being punished. 

1 'Geoff ' ' belonged to Mr. Leon Gaudet at Fort Norman. He was a most 
handsome dog, black and dark yellow, with long hair ; in character he was 
much like Punch whose half-brother he was, ever cheerful and hard working, 
a most lovable, playful dog, always up to some mischief of a more or less 
innocent kind. He was a hard worker, rather fond of fighting, and while he 



176 Xante tforlorn 

wasn't so strictly honest as Punch he could be trusted to behave himself 
around camp if we let him loose. 

"Nigger" was a smaller dog, black with a few white markings; Hornby- 
had got him at Fort Norman ; he had worked for Hornby and Melville be- 
fore. He reminded us of a certain type of men — little runts, little mentally, 
usually physically as well — men who are always irreproachable in their 
conduct, always working hard, always immaculately good; whose whole 
life is an example. Just such a virtuous and irritating little prig was Nigger. 
Punch and Geoff were both good dogs, but they were thoroughly lovable 
characters and never made a parade of their goodness as did that insuffer- 
able small-minded snob Nigger. 

' 'Husky' ' was another of Francois's dogs ; he had got him in trade from the 
Eskimos in the summer. He was the typical "husky " dog, grey, with sharp 
upstanding ears ; he was a curious character and had little in common with 
the other dogs. At first, with his pretences of being a great fighter, he had 
them all, except Cuchar, bluffed into paying him a certain amount of def- 
erence. His favourite trick was to come charging down on them when they 
were eating and send them spinning, then appropriate their fish, or whatever 
it might be. From the way he took it up at once with our dogs it was no 
doubt a trick he had acquired and worked successfully amongst the Indians 
though I never saw him try it on Cuchar. He tried it with Geoff one day, 
and as soon as Geoff got over his astonishment, he sailed into Husky and 
would have killed him if we hadn't interfered. That was the last time 
Husky tried his charging game with any of our dogs. He was a fairly willing 
worker when hauling a toboggan, but his legs were short in proportion to his 
body and he couldn't travel as fast as the other dogs. He was almost useless 
when we came to "pack" the dogs later; his short legs made it very difficult 
to load him and he was a most unwilling worker when it came to carrying 
anything on his back. He was a bad thief, though not in Cuchar's splendidly 
daring style, and we had to keep him tied all the time. 

I have said he was always a kind of outsider with the other dogs. If 
we were in the tent and any of the dogs were up to some mischief, Husky 



Spring 3ourne?a 



177 



would give the show away by growling loudly; the chastisement that the 
offender usually got was always to Husky's evident great delight, and he was 
always on the alert against 
anything doing that he could 
not take part in himself. 

It would be an injustice to 
Potash to put any other dog in 
the first place; as I can't give 
"Jack" that honour I have 
left him to the last. If Nigger 
reminded us of the self-right- 
eous Pharisee, Jack was like 
one of these stout, easy-going, 
imperturbable men, faithful 
and reliable, the kind that 
never make a fuss, whose 
work is usually well done, 
and in a way that gives them- 
selves least trouble, and who 
don't work overtime unless 
they can't help it. Jack had 
been with Hornby and Mel- 
ville the preceding year and 
had been given by them to 
the Indians. We made Jack's 
acquaintance when the In- 
dians were camped at Hodg- 
son's Point in the autumn; he 

had always been a prime favourite with Lion and me to whom he particu- 
larly attached himself. He spent the winter with the Indians, and we never 
saw him from the end of November until just before we started on the trip, 
when he came to our camp with the Indians on the last day. Poor old 




Jack 



178 Xante jforlorn 

Jack was in such a condition that we hardly recognised him ; he was so starved 
that he could scarcely walk. We rescued him and took him along with us. 
He could only follow behind the toboggans for the first few days, but picked 
up wonderfully quickly, and in the course of a few weeks of good feeding 
became one of our best dogs. He attached himself to Lion and me more than 
ever. Certainly he was always my special favourite, I don't know why. 
He wasn't so lovable a dog as Geoff or Punch, such a good worker as Cuchar, 
or so clever as Potash ; in mere point of intelligence he was one of the most 
stupid of the dogs, as he was one of the ugliest in appearance. 

But so it goes, and so unreasoning are we in our affections. 

Harry joined our party the night before we left, and the Indians all 
went off again to their camp on the lake. Harry was a rather nice lad and 
though he was of very little real use he was usually amusing and certainly 
added to the general liveliness of the party. 

At first it was quite evident that he didn't think much of white men 
and their ways. It is true he knew Hornby well, but Hornby had been so 
long in the country that he had got to be almost like an Indian himself in 
his way of living. Harry got to know us better later on, and I think ended 
in even admiring us ! 

We had everything loaded up on the toboggans ready for an early start ; 
all our things were carefully put away in our little shack, which would now 
have to take care of itself. 

The last breakfast was quite sad ; it was the last civilised meal that we 
were likely to have for some time and we were sorry to leave the place that 
had been such a comfortable home to us. Harry was particularly solemn 
through it all; we had hominy that morning as a special treat, something 
that he had never seen before in his life, and he tried to eat it with a fork, 
plainly contemptuous of white men and their ways, especially their food. 

Everything was made as secure as possible in the house; we closed up 
the door, trusting to find all well on our return. 



VIII 

TOBOGGAN AND PACK 

ON April 30th, at 9 a.m., the start was made; we had two toboggans 
with three dogs to each, Hornby took one toboggan with Punch, 
Geoff, and Cuchar, I took the other with Potash, Nigger, and 
Husky. Harry ran on ahead ; Lion was the hunter and poor old Jack trailed 
along in the rear. 

The weather was fine and bright, our toboggans were not too heavily 
loaded, and the trail good ; travelling was a fair delight under such circum- 
stances and after the confinement and the small worries of preparations that 
had taken all my time for nearly a month. We camped that night above 
East River, and the next on the overland traverse that we used to make 
between the Dease River and Lake Rouvier. 

In passing over the barren plains next day, we sighted a large herd of 
caribou, the largest herd we ever saw, numbering perhaps several hundred. 
Luckily we saw them ourselves before the dogs got wind of them. Lion 
and I went ahead while the others looked after the dogs. The caribou were 
scattered over an open plain ; they were in a very difficult place to approach 
and we had to open fire at an extreme range. Fortunately we got three of 
them; as soon as we had settled the caribou, Hornby came up with the tobog- 
gans, Harry, and the dogs in a great state of excitement. Cutting up caribou 
was Harry's particular delight ; he always used to appropriate for himself the 
bones of the fore legs and crack them for the marrow. 

The dogs ate till they could positively eat no more. Jack had such a 

179 



i8o 



Xanbs forlorn 



feed as he had been stranger to for a long time, and his rapid recovery dated 
from these first caribou we killed. 

We loaded up most of the meat on the toboggans; it made them very- 
heavy and between this point and Lake Rouvier we had the heaviest going, 




The Grand Start 



as the wind had swept the snow off the exposed ridges; in some places we 
had to double up the teams and haul the toboggans over one at a time. 

We got to Lake Rouvier that same afternoon and found the Doctor 
all well. He had killed several caribou also while we were away, and had 
brought in most of the meat on his back, so we had plenty of fresh meat 
now; the dogs fairy revelled in it; we gave them all they could possibly 
eat, and treated ourselves the same way. 

The country between Hodgson's Point and Lake Rouvier had be- 
come so familiar to us by this time that it seemed only now that we were 



{Toboggan anb pack 



181 



making a start. It required four toboggan loads to take all the stuff we 
wanted at the Coppermine River, so that we would have to make two 
journeys. 

We spent a day at Lake Rouvier giving the dogs a rest and a chance to 
fill up. Lion and I also had to dig out Hornby's canoe; it was buried in a 




Crossing Wind-Swept Ridges 



hard packed snow-drift at the edge of the lake. We intended to use it on 
our return journey down the river and wanted to make sure that it would 
not get damaged when the ice broke up. 

It turned mild very suddenly that afternoon; we had a strong south 
wind and the temperature rose to 40 . This was quite unexpected and very 
unwelcome ; we hoped it might turn cold again at night, but it kept mild and 
the warm south wind blew all through the night. 

Hornby and Harry had been sleeping in a tent; the Doctor, Lion, and 
I in the house. The roof leaked so badly that Lion and I took refuge on 



1 82 Xante ]forlorn 

the comparatively dry chips scattered outside; the Doctor was luckier in 
the location of his bed. 

We started at seven next morning ; the snow was soft and the going very 
heavy ; the ascent of the long grade at the northern end of the lake was a hard 
struggle. The summit of this divide between the Dease River and the Dis- 
mal Lakes is a narrow level valley extending for several miles ; along it lay a 
few small lakes. On the east side of this valley the hills rose precipitously ; 
there is a conspicuous high bluff that we had hitherto called " Hornby 
Hill" but which we identified afterwards as one that the Doctor and I had 
seen from the top of Teshierpi Mountain the summer before and had then 
called " Dorothy and Marian " ; from that point it appears as two somewhat 
similar peaks. 

The ice on the small lakes was already covered with slush, so rapidly was 
the snow melting under the warm strong south wind. To the north of the 
divide there is a lake large enough to be conspicuous ; the Doctor and I had 
seen this also from Teshierpi Mountain, and had then called it "Mountain 
Lake, " but it was not till later on that we identified it. 

We travelled over the surface of this lake for several miles, then shaped 
our course by compass for where we expected to find Teshierpi Mountain. 
Leaving the lake we crossed a high ridge ; from the summit of this we had a 
grand view of the great depression in which the Dismal Lakes lie. The first 
landmarks I could identify were the long line of precipitous cliffs running 
between the Coppermine River and the Dismal Lakes; neither the Doctor 
nor myself could recognise Teshierpi Mountain for some time, and small 
blame to us. For we had seen it only from points north-west to north- 
east of it from which sides it appears round and regular in shape. Its 
southern aspect is quite different, being a series of precipitous basalt 
terraces like the Coppermine Mountains, of which it is in fact the most 
southerly spur. 

We followed the undulating ridges down to the Teshierpi River; the 
hauling was very heavy, the snow was disappearing with astonishing quick- 
ness in that brilliant sunshine and warm wind; it was a rarely beautiful 



toboggan anb pach 



183 



day and the view ahead of us was singularly lovely under the bright and 
tranquil sky. 

We crossed a few more small lakes ; their shape on this side of the divide 
was generally long and narrow; their surface was six inches deep in slush. 




Teshierpi Camp 



Our toboggans swished along through it like boats and I blessed the good 
equipment of waterproof bags that we had. 

We got to the Teshierpi River and followed that down to a point on the 
southern slope of the Teshierpi Mountain about four miles from where the 
river discharges into the narrows between the second and third Dismal 
Lakes. 

We made camp on a small rise above the river ; such snow as the winds 
had left on that exposed spot was completely melted off. It was the first 



1 84 Xanbs tforlorn 

dry ground camp we had this year, and we found it an indescribable luxury 
after the nuisance of camping on snow. 

Teshierpi Mountain rose high to the north of us; there is some small 
stunted spruce on this southern slope so we had plenty of firewood. More- 
over we had the unwonted luxury of plenty of good drinking water instead 
of having to melt snow over the fire, which was always troublesome and 
which always tasted nasty. 

We thought Teshierpi Camp the acme of comfort ; even when we camped 
here again more than six weeks later, and after we had become decidedly 
fastidious in the matter of camp sites by the uniformly good fortune that 
had been our lot in this respect, we still thought it a pleasant place. There 
is in fact something curiously attractive about all that country at the 
eastern end of the Dismal Lakes, an attraction that we had felt the summer 
before and which Hanbury seems to have experienced no less than ourselves. 

The rapid disappearance of the snow was very awkward for us, and we 
decided to bring the second loads of stuff to this point at once before the 
sleighing got any worse. Fortunately it turned colder again next day ; the 
Doctor and Hornby made the trip back to Lake Rouvier while Lion and I 
prospected ahead for a good route. We wanted if possible to strike right 
across to the Coppermine Mountains instead of following the Kendall River. 
We also climbed Teshierpi Mountain again and I was able to check up the 
bearings I had taken in the autumn and to identify the landmarks to the 
south. 

Next day the others returned early, the freeze-up had made the travel- 
ling good and the second trip had been a comparatively easy one. 

We decided to do our travelling by night henceforth; the conditions 
were more likely to be better and there was practically daylight all the time ; 
within a week from this time we were unable to see any stars at midnight. 

The next two days were very stormy with high winds and a little fine 
snow; it was not till the evening of May 8th, two days after Hornby's and 
the Doctor's return, that the weather moderated enough to allow us to 
proceed on our journey. 



{Toboggan ant> pack 185 

On May 8th, Lion, Hornby, Harry, and I made the first trip with two 
toboggan loads of stuff, leaving the Doctor to begin his geological work 
around Teshierpi Mountain. We started at 9 p.m. ; it was a raw blustering 
evening, but turned finer as the night went on. A short distance below our 
camp the dogs scented a caribou and got so excited that we had to upset the 
toboggans to hold them back, while Lion went ahead and shot the caribou 
It was a little yearling bull, the first bull caribou we had got this year. We 
took most of the meat along with us; we had now become so expert in 
butchering caribou that we lost only half an hour over the whole business. 

We crossed the second Dismal Lake, then made a straight line for the 
western bend of the Coppermine River. The ground was smooth and level, 
and though there was only a scanty covering of snow, the sleighing was 
nevertheless very good ; we had those ideal conditions of a hard crust with a 
little loose snow on top. We crossed an undulating plain with small lakes 
here and there ; we kept parallel to the ridge of the mountains on the north- 
west and our route lay over several of these lakes. 

In some places there were small scattered spruce trees, mostly dead; 
we stopped for lunch about 2 A.M. on a little oasis of dry ground with plenty 
of dry spruce for a big fire. In high spirits we sat before that cheerful 
blaze and filled up on caribou ; enthusiastic over sledge journeys, over night 
travelling, over the country, and most of all over caribou liver. 

A few miles farther on we reached a high point from where we could 
see the most westerly sweep of the Coppermine River. 

The banks are very steep along this bend, but we found a place a few 
miles above Stony Creek, where we got down all right with our heavily 
loaded toboggans. I was surprised to find how the snow had gone from the 
familiar southward-facing hills; the terraces of the mountains were mostly 
bare except where huge drifts lay at the bottom of the basalt cliffs. 

The river had been completely flooded, though now it was frozen up 
again. The surface was smooth ice that would have been fine for skating. 

Just below the place where the Doctor and I had camped the summer 
before we came on an extraordinary sight. 



1 86 



lanbs fforlorn 



The country through which Stony Creek runs, just before it joins the 
Coppermine, is a curious elevated delta, forming a level triangular space 
among the mountains about half a square mile in area. A considerable part 
of this plain is made up of a regular bed of boulders, very uniform in size 




The Rock Slide in Spring 



and in one place this peculiar "boulder bed" extends right down to the shore 
of the river, a cataract of rock a hundred yards wide that we usually spoke 
of as the ' ' Rock Slide. ' ' Even in the middle of August there was an accumu- 
lation of ice on the boulder bed ; it looked like a miniature glacier and we were 
puzzled then how to account for it. 

Now the Rock Slide was like a vast frozen waterfall, a veritable Niagara 
of ice. Hell Gate was filled almost to the top of its walls with a steep frozen 
river, and the boulder bed beyond was covered many feet thick with bluish- 



toboggan anb pack 187 

white ice. Evidently Stony Creek must run all the year round from some 
subterranean source, and these huge accumulations of ice are the results of 
its constant overflowing and freezing as it overflows. 

As we passed it we looked at the old place where the Doctor and I had 
been located the previous summer, but it was not a good situation for our 




First Spring Camp at the Coppermine Mountains 

camp now. With some difficulty we made our way up the steep ice incline 
of Hell Gate and pitched our tents on a bare grassy space at the top of the 
bank between the boulder bed and the river. " Boulder Bed Camp" was 
the name we gave the place ; it was to be our base camp and we set up our 
tents as carefully and comfortably as we could. It was a good place in that 
there was plenty of smooth level ground around the tents and a fairly 
abundant supply of wood from a grove of stunted, scattered spruce close 
to the camp. It commanded a fine view of the river, but it was terribly 
exposed as we found to our sorrow more than once later. 



188 



Hanfcs jforlorn 



By the time we had the camp fixed up it was noon. Lion and Hornby 
turned in for a sleep, while I made a trip to the very top of the Coppermine 
Mountains, hoping to have the same success hunting now as on the first 
day of the former visit ; but I got nothing except an Arctic hare. The sum- 
mit is a rocky table -land ; its thousand feet of elevation had made a consider- 




The Coppermine River in Early May 



able difference in the progress of the season ; the thaw had taken very little 
effect on those drifted plains, a dreary desert of rock and snow. 

Hornby started back to Teshierpi Camp that same night about twelve ; 
Lion and I spent the next day hunting and building a platform ready to 
cache our stuff when we started farther on our journey. The others re- 
turned the following morning; the travelling had been good and we found 
ourselves happily located at the very place we wanted to be and at the 
earliest time at which we could profitably begin investigations. 

Indeed we had got over the latter part of our journey none too soon; 



{toboggan anb pack 189 

only the next day after the Doctor and Hornby arrived with the last load 
it turned so mild that all snow on the levels disappeared like magic. Travel- 
ling by toboggan was over for the season. 

The small creeks were running high and the water flowing deep over the 
ice along the shores of the river. We had not expected the spring to start 
so early as this; for a while we hoped that a spell of frost might even yet 
set the ice on the river hard enough for us to travel on. For a week we did 
not lose hope of this, but at the end of that time it was quite evident that 
all possibility of travelling on the ice was over. 

In fact the weather continued so warm and the ice in the river seemed 
so likely to break up before long that we began to think seriously of making 
some kind of a craft, though we knew that on both of Simpson's journeys he 
had been unable to descend the river with his boats until nearly six weeks 
later than this. 

There was enough dry spruce to build a small raft, but a raft in that swift 
river among ice would have been too unmanageable, in fact I should not care 
to attempt rafting down the lower Coppermine under any circumstances. 

Our toboggans were of no more use to us, so I broke them up, splitting 
them into thin strips and from these strips we made a canoe frame, using 
the curved part for the ribs and lashing them all together with babiche and 
electric insulating tape of which I had brought a roll. We intended to cover 
this frame with a silk tarpaulin. 

Considering the materials at our disposal I was quite proud of the 
Good Hope, as we called her. It made a great impression on Harry; 
he said that he supposed white men couldn't make anything unless they 
had a hammer and nails, and he started to make a funny little model 
to take back and show the other Indians how we had built a canoe of our 
sleighs. No sooner had we started building the canoe than spring came to 
a standstill, the weather turned raw and cold with severe gales from the 
north-west. We felt the exposed condition of our camp now, and had to 
build brush windbreaks to protect our tents. That which Hornby and 
Harry rigged up in front of theirs excelled in the variety of its materials 



190 



Xanbs forlorn 



and the picturesquesness of its appearance, a result attained, not by sudden 
flight, but the sum of successive inspirations; there was no underlying 
central idea consistently worked out. 

It may have been a lucky thing for us that the condition of the river 




The "Good Hope" 



remained so impossible for any kind of navigation that we never even 
launched the Good Hope. Perhaps the Eskimos have found and used her since. 
I can imagine their amusement and contempt over the results of which I was 
so proud, but which would compare very unfavourably with their neat 
workmanship, although they have no better materials and far inferior tools. 
In the meantime the Doctor was carrying on his geological investiga- 
tions and we were all prospecting and hunting. Lion had shot a small bull 
caribou the first day after we camped. 



{Toboggan ant> pack 



191 



The skins of the caribou were now lined inside with the larvae of warble 
flies or bots. At this time these were great white maggots as big as the 
first joint of a man's little finger. They grew no larger, but as the 
season progressed they changed in colour to a dark yellowish brown. 
These warbles eat their way through the skin and drop out on the ground 




Hornby's Triumph 



where they go through their final transformation to a fly something like 
a big bee. 

Besides the warbles we sometimes noticed at this season a mass of 
worms in the back part of the caribou's throat: two wriggling bundles as 
big as eggs of loathsome things like pale yellow caterpillars. Harry always 
showed a great dread of them, and said that the dogs would die if they ate 
any of these worms. 

What a tormented life those wretched caribou must lead! harried by 
wolves, hunted by men, tortured by flies, their throats sometimes full 



192 



Xante ]forlorn 



of writhing worms and their hides punctured by warbles with a hundred 
holes. 

Lion's caribou lasted us only a couple of days and we were beginning 
to need meat badly again when I was fortunate enough to get four fairly 
large bulls. Hornby, Harry, and I had started out one evening and about 




Warbles in the Skin of a Caribou. Early May- 



three miles from camp we came on a caribou in a wide muskeg. We were 
a long way from it and I saw only one at first. Then another appeared. As 
I shot at them two more came into view and I got them all. Harry was in a 
state of the wildest delight ; Hornby had recently given him a big knife and 
here was a fine chance to use it. 

We took as much meat as we could carry back to the camp, intending 
to get the dogs and pack in the rest of it. It was midnight by this time and 
the Doctor and Lion had turned in. When we got back with our loads of 
fresh meat the dogs made such a racket in their excitement that it Woke 



{toboggan anfc pack 



193 



them up. Lion volunteered to help us, but the Doctor had already been 
working hard all day and didn't see any fun in packing caribou meat to camp 
all night, so he turned in to sleep again. We had a good supper of fresh 
heart and liver before we started, and while sitting in our tent eating it Horn- 
by thought he heard Husky giving one of his premonitory growls and yelled 




Hornby and Punch 

out to Geoff to behave himself; with his playful disposition Geoff was 
usually the offender in these cases. The growling continued ; at last Hornby 
went out to see what was going on and found that the noise came from the 
Doctor snoring in the other tent ! 

We spent the rest of the night bringing in the meat ; this was my first 
experience of packing with dogs, and the amount of weight they were able 
to carry fairly astonished me. Cuchar could carry as much as I would 
like to attempt. 

A few days after this the Doctor and Hornby made a trip with the 

13 



194 Xante 3forlorn 

dogs about ten miles farther down the river and located another camp there, 
"Camp Basalt/' from which the Doctor continued his work for a few days. 

By May 24th we had given up all hopes of the ice going out of the river 
soon enough for us to use the Good Hope, so we decided to make the journey 
on foot, packing the dogs. 

We first took one load of stuff to a point twelve miles below Camp 
Basalt; "Camp Melville" we called this, after Hornby's former companion. 
We left the Doctor here to geologise while we returned to our base camp at 
Boulder Bed, then joined the Doctor at Melville again with another load. 

Then we moved slowly down the river prospecting as we went. 

Packing with dogs was necessarily a slow and laborious business, so 
much time was needed to straighten out the packs and to arrange the loads 
on the dogs that it usually took us four hours from the time we got up in 
the morning until we were ready to start. Cuchar, Punch, and Geoff were 
the best dogs ; they all carried loads of more than fifty pounds. Jack would 
only carry about forty; if we put any more on him he would lag behind. 
But Jack was a very reliable packer, especially when crossing streams, and 
we could put some of the things on his back that required more or less careful 
handling. Potash was not so strong, but willing and careful. He always 
carried the tents and a tarpaulin; these altogether weighed thirty pounds. 
Nigger was too small to be much good as a packer and he was generally a 
nuisance, always slipping his pack and most skilful in assuming a look of 
complete innocence when it was done, and in making it appear that he was 
not to blame but that the fault lay with the person who had put it on his 
back. Husky was the worst of all ; he was short in the legs and his back 
sagged like the cables of a suspension bridge. At best he could carry only 
twenty-five or thirty pounds, and he was so much slower than the other 
dogs that he always lagged behind. 

Each of us had our own packs of clothes, blankets, etc., including rifles, 
ammunition, instruments; our total loads averaged about 70 lbs. each. 
Hornby and the Doctor were the best packers; Hornby was a small man 
but very strong and wiry, and the load he could carry was remarkable.! 



{Toboggan an& ipacfc 195 

have known him carry a load of 125 lbs. of caribou meat a short distance into 
camp. I think that I was probably the poorest packer of the lot. 

The weights given above may not seem very great when one recalls 
the familiar way some popular writers speak of 150-lb. packs as though they 
were mere trifles. I should emphasise the fact that we were strictly average 
men and that all the figures I have given were obtained by actually weighing 
and not merely guessing or estimating. 

If I were to guess the weight of a 70-lb. pack after having carried it 
ten miles I should say ''about 300 lbs.!" 

The order of our march was usually as follows : I led the way with the 
faithful Jack close at my heels, later on Potash showed a decided preference 
to walk behind me also. Then came Hornby, the Doctor, and Harry, behind 
them the rest of the dogs. Lion brought up the rear, the hardest and most 
thankless job of all ; Husky always lagged behind and had to be incessantly 
urged along with a stick, howling, yelping, and whining; a ceaseless futile 
protest that we were all going much too fast. Husky was an awful nuisance 
on the road ; later on we never loaded him at all and even then he wouldn't 
keep up. 

The time we spent between Boulder Bed and Melville was the most 
unpleasant part of our packing experiences ; it was the roughest country we 
had to cross, the ground was very wet, and we still had sharp frosts occasion- 
ally. The dogs' packing harnesses would get wet and then freeze : it was a 
troublesome job thawing them out in front of the fire before we started. 
Moreover we did not have the details of packing, the arrangement of packs, 
etc., so well arranged as we got them later on. 

At Camp Melville we had one day of such bad weather, with high 
winds and fine driving snow, that we had to stay in camp. 

Then came a change, sudden, complete, and delightful. The weather 
turned bright and warm, beautiful beyond description, and though big drifts 
still lay here and there in the hollows the country soon dried up and the 
walking was generally very good. Our next camp below Melville was a 
particularly pleasant one, the spruce was getting very small and scant now, 



196 



Xante iforlorn 



and occurred only in small clumps along the river. We called this "Camp 
Brule"; it was near a small grove of spruce, part of which had been killed 
by fire at some remote time. Hornby objected to the name and wanted to 
know why we could not use English ; considering the number of B rules one 




Burnt Camp 



finds in the North, his objection was good, so we changed the name to Burnt 
Camp. And the name came near being prophetic; we very nearly did lose 
our tents by fire spreading through the moss. 

We spent two days here. Lion got four fairly large bull caribou close 
to the camp, and I got three at a place ten miles farther down the river, so 
we had a supply of meat ready at our next camp. 

We made our way down the river by easy stages. The spruce trees got 
smaller and scantier, finally we left them behind altogether, and had to use 



, • ' ; --,-,. 





d&A±. * 




Sandstone Cliffs on the Lower Coppermine River 



197 



198 



Xante forlorn 



heaths, willow twigs, and mosses for cooking, but everything had dried up 
so quickly in that constant bright sunlight that we never had any difficulty 
in making a fire. 

The country through which we passed was a succession of undulating 




The " Musk Ox Rapids' 



plains over a sandstone formation and between well-defined parallel ranges 
of basalt hills. These lay nearly east and west at right angles to the course 
of the river, which cuts through them, usually forming rapids at the in- 
tersection. Such rapids are the "Sandstone" and " Escape" of Sir John 
Franklin, and most notable of all the "Bloody Falls" of Samuel Hearne. 

The ranges decreased in height as we went farther north; judging by 
the eye alone one would never suspect how great is the difference of elevation. 
The Coppermine Mountains rise noo feet above the river, the next' well- 



toboggan anb pacft 



199 



defined range about 500-600 feet; while the last range, through which the 
river cuts at the Bloody Falls, is less than 200 feet high. 

We first saw the sea from the summit of the second range ; it was about 
twenty-five miles distant in a straight line. 




Characteristic Sandstone Formation, Lower Coppermine River 



We had fixed on the Bloody Falls as the location of our farthest north 
camp; on our last day's march we kept expecting to see them long before 
we had any real reason to do so, and at every summit or rising ground we 
hoped to get a nearer view of the sea. Our noon camp that day found us on 
the brow of a sandy height; we had come nearly nine miles already and 
we expected surely to have a sight of the sea from this summit, but instead 
of this we overlooked a wide valley bounded on the north by yet an- 
other range of hills. As a matter of fact we were then just above the 



200 



Xanbs jforlorn 



Escape Rapids. We could not tell from here where the river passed this 
range, but it was evident that the Bloody Falls were still eight or nine miles 
ahead of us. 

A striking feature of this range was what at a distance we took to be 




A Basalt Dyke. Sir John Franklin's "Sandstone Rapids' 



some vast snow-drifts almost level with the top of the ridge; as we got 
closer we found these were in fact a great mound of white clay and sand 
with some smaller detached ones. 

Even when we got to the range we saw nothing of the Bloody Falls, 
the river curved past the big sand mound making a cut bank that was quite 
impassable; our only road was to cross the range and we were all too tired 
to attempt it that night. So we put up our tents on its southern slope in 
a corner between the basalt ridge and the smallest clay mound. This'clay 



toboggan anb pacft 



201 



mound looked exactly like an immense tailing dump from some ore- 
concentrating mill and we called it "Tailing Dump Camp." 

There are several of these peculiar clay mounds on the eastern side of 
the river as well ; they are a curious and striking feature, and I am surprised 




Tailing Dump Camp 



that so little has been said about them by former explorers. Only Sir 
John Franklin mentions them and that very shortly, comparing them to ice- 
bergs, which is a very good simile. Richardson speaks of the rocks at 
Bloody Falls being "covered to a depth of six or seven hundred feet" with 
a bed of "greyish white rather tenacious clay. " The "six or seven hundred 
feet" is an extravagant over-estimate and illustrates what I have just said 
about the apparent height of these successive ranges and how curiously 
deceptive they are to the eye. 



202 



Xanbs jfotlorn 



But travelling as we did along the heights above the river gave us a 
much better chance to observe the country than making the journey by boat, 
and these white hills no doubt looked far more striking to us than they had 
to our predecessors. 




The Bloody Falls 



After supper we climbed the ridge ; like all these basalt hills its southern 
aspect is sharp and precipitous while it stretches away gradually to the 
north. From the summit we got a wonderfully beautiful view of the sea 
under a gorgeous sky, the high western capes and the many islands distorted 
to curious and ever-changing shapes by a remarkable mirage. We could 
also see the Bloody Falls, a mile or so farther down the river. 

It was 10.30 p.m., when we returned to our camp, the sun was still 
above the horizon, fiery red, the mirage had become stranger and more 



toboggan anfc pack 



203 



fantastic than ever; of the real appearance of the islands in the gulf and the 
land to the west we could form no idea whatever. 

Early next morning we started over the ridge again, heading for the 
Bloody Falls ; it was a fine bright day, and the view to the north was now 




The Bloody Falls— a Closer View 



undistorted by mirage ; for the first time we could see what the islands and 
the coasts to the north-west really looked like. 

As we were looking over the river from a high point we were 
delighted to see some Eskimos on the other side, so made our way down 
to the Bloody Falls as fast as we could. These are not really falls, 
but a swift crooked rapid; the river cuts through several hundred 
yards of basalt running between perpendicular walls of sheer rock 
in some places not more than fifty yards apart. There is a drop 



204 



Xante tforlorn 



of about fifteen feet in three hundred yards, the river rages violently 
through that narrow crooked channel; it is a regular sluice, impetuous 
and turbulent. The rapids continue a short distance below the gorge; in 
fact the greatest drop and the swiftest water is just beyond the basalt walls. 




The Lower Part of the Bloody Falls 



The river then flows more quietly between high banks of sand and clay. 

The Eskimos saw us before we got to the rapids, and hailed us with as 
much pleasure as we did them; there was a great shouting of "Teyma!" 
and waving of arms. 

At the particular moment of our arrival the upper part of the rapid was 
clear and the lower part jammed with huge blocks of ice. The river had 
started to break up in earnest, more and more ice coming down all the time. 

The Eskimos were on the opposite side to ourselves ; they were soon 
joined by a number of others that came over the hill from some camp below 



{Toboggan an& pacft 



205 



until there must have been twenty-five or thirty of them, mostly women and 
children. 

After a while two of the men ventured across to our side, walking over 
the jammed ice; it was a most risky proceeding on their part, as the whole 




Drawn by W. J. Wilson from a photograph 



Eskimos Crossing on the Jammed Ice at Bloody Falls 



thing was liable to be swept away any moment, 
men that Hornby had met the preceding summer; 
and apparently delighted to see us. 

Presently one of them went back across the 
side again carrying the skin of a musk-ox; a third 
Doctor thought that this was the same man we had 
Lake. They were all nice looking men; one was a 
fellow, several inches taller than the others, active, 
and an air of alert intelligence. 



These were some of the 
they were quite friendly 

ice, and returned to our 
man came with him, the 
met at the end of Dismal 
particularly fine looking 
robust, with rosy cheeks 



206 Xanbs jforlorn 

It was a delight to meet these vivacious, well-bred people after the sulky 
Indians ; their manners indeed were just as good and very similar to our own. 
We could carry on a conversation only by signs; they were very clever at 
this, even old Jacob's exploits were thrown into the shade by their brilliantly 
expressive gesticulations. 

They explained that they had come to spear salmon, giving a most 
comical imitation of a fish wriggling at the end of a spear. As soon as the 
flies came they were going inland to hunt caribou ; and the representation 
they gave of a man pestered by mosquitoes, slapping his face and neck, was 
extremely realistic; one could almost hear the mosquitoes buzzing. They 
did it all with inimitable gravity, quite engrossed in their efforts to make us 
understand. 

We wanted also to find out where they picked up the pieces of native 
copper used by them for their weapons and utensils; they pointed to the 
south and gave a ludicrous representation of a man bending under a heavy 
load to typify a long journey, finally struggling up a steep hill and arriving 
quite exhausted. Certainly their fertility of resource and invention at signs 
was extraordinary. 

Meantime the rest of the Eskimos watched us from the high rocky bank 
opposite. One of the women, evidently the wife of the biggest of the three 
men and really quite attractive in appearance, was much concerned when her 
man crossed the ice, and well she might be. When he got back safely 
she welcomed him with many signs of affection. They had one little mit with 
some bead work on it ; probably it had come to them from the Indians, and 
apparently it was some kind of an amulet or charm; they would exchange 
it every once in a while ; he left it with her when he crossed the ice jam. 

They went back to get some more musk-ox skins, of which we under- 
stood they had seven altogether at their camp; they had scarcely crossed 
before the whole ice jam carried away and we had no further intercourse 
with them. 

The Doctor wanted to make some geological notes, Hornby hoped that 
the Eskimos might be able to get across the river again, Lion and I wanted 



{Toboggan ant> pack 207 

to go on to the sea, so we left the others and struck across to the north- 
north-west, in which direction we expected to find the shortest route to the 
shore. 

We walked over a gently undulating grassy plain, with occasional small 



Drawn by W. J. Wflson from a photograph 

View Towards Cape Hearne 

lakes and muskegs ; this part of the country was very wet, and in some places 
we had to wade long distances up to our knees. The distance to the sea was 
greater than we had expected ; we were tired and hungry, but after having 
come so far we did not like to forego the honour and glory of getting to the 
actual shore itself. At last after a weary nine-mile walk from the Bloody 
Falls we stood on the very edge of the continent. 

The beach is sand and mud; there is a considerable quantity of drift- 
wood along the shore; I was surprised to find so much, but it is all small 
stuff. I saw nothing but spruce. 



208 



Xante fforlorn 



The ice was fast to the beach; there was no kind of a tide crack, 
nothing at all to indicate any rise or fall of tide, though the drift- 
wood was considerably above the level of the ice. 




On Coronation Gulf 



Probably the wind has most to do with the level of the water in this 
part of Coronation Gulf. There may be considerable changes in this level 
during the short summer season when the ice is broken up, or when there 
is open water in the gulf itself, in the surrounding straits, and in the ocean 
to the west. But when the surface of the sea is solid with ice there is 
evidently very little change in level. 



^Toboggan ant> pack 209 

In all the small lakes the ice had thawed leaving a space of open water 
around the shores, and I do not know why this was not the case with the sea 
ice as well. The latter must set later in the autumn, and the reasons for 
the ice thawing first around the shores of the lakes apply equally well to 
the sea ice also, but we could walk from the gradually sloping sandy beach 
right on to the ice. 

It stretched smooth and solid to the north, the surface was mostly 
hard and level, there was a little water and slush on it in places but only in 
very shallow pools ; it would have been fine to travel on just then. 

We unfurled the flags we had reserved for this occasion and took pictures 
of each other proudly standing on the ice of the Arctic Ocean, the northern 
limit of our long journey. 

It was "Homeward Bound!" now, our faces were turned south again 
at last; a retreat ever southward, of which the end was five long months 
and many thousand miles away. 

We returned by much the same way that we had come ; about three miles 
from the sea we saw an Eskimo on the side of a small hill hunting ptarmigan 
with bow and arrows. We waved and shouted to him, but he never paid 
the slightest attention to us. Then we saw there was a small Eskimo camp 
not far away with some others standing around ; I suppose the man thought 
we were waving to them. 

We crossed a swamp to this camp ; it was a small lean-to of caribou skins 
stretched over some poles, the people were apparently on the march and this 
was merely a temporary shelter. 

They welcomed us warmly; there were five in the camp when we 
got there: an old man and woman, evidently the father and mother, 
a girl of twelve or thirteen, a boy about ten, and a little girl of seven 
or eight. 

Presently another girl came into camp with a bundle on her back, 
and later on the young man whom we had seen hunting ptarmigan. 

These were decidedly the most pleasant of the Eskimos we saw; indeed 
it was hard to believe, so far as conduct and behaviour went, that we were 

14 



210 



Xante tforlorn 



not dealing with highly civilised and cultivated people. They had the same 

easy manners and the same well-bred ways usual with all people of culture. 

At first we tried to carry on the conversation with the old man, but his 




Eskimos Near the Coast 



wife shoved him aside in a good-natured way, as much as to say, "Leave this 
to me, I am far cleverer than you. " The old lady was very voluble and kept 
up a steady stream of talk, as though she was quite confident that we under- 
stood perfectly all she was saying. The eldest girl took part in the "talk" 
in a quiet way ; she was a nice girl, really quite charming, though it may 
seem a curious application of the word, and the next eldest was a pleasantly 
cheerful little thing. 

As far as we could gather from them, they had come from the North 



{Toboggan an& pacft 



211 



(Victoria Land?), that they had been catching seal, and that they were going 
to hunt caribou. They knew that the other Eskimos were at Bloody Falls. 
We did not know of Stefannson's whereabouts and tried to find out from 
these people, but could not make out whether they had seen anything of 




A Summer Camp 



him or not. They had a large sheet-metal trough and a couple of tin pots, 
perhaps these had been brought in by Bernard in the "Teddy Bear. " 

The young man kept much in the background ; the women seemed to 
be of most consequence in this family. 

I had written down a number of Eskimo words in my note-book, a kind 
of a little dictionary that I had made in the winter from a French-Eskimo 
dictionary by Pere Emile Petit 6t. They understood very few of these words, 
no doubt because of my own imperfection of pronunciation, but once in a 
while I would get out a word that they did know and then their astonishment 



212 Xante jforlorn 

and delight was most amusing; they would crowd around the bok and 
listen as though they expected to hear something from it. I wrote down a 
few words that I got from them and this seemed to surprise them no less; 
they all wanted to try their hands with the pencil; it was delightful to see 
their joy at being able to make marks that to them probably looked much 
the same as my own. The eldest girl was particularly interested in the book 
and in trying to write. 

They wanted us to have something to eat; set over a very small fire 
was the sheet -metal trough I have mentioned. It was full of some kind of 
a stew, but though we were both very hungry neither of us felt inclined to 
tackle that slimy repulsive mess of luke-warm oil, blood, and half -raw meat. 
Our food had always been of a fairly civilised order, and one needs a little 
breaking in to stand this sort of thing, so we declined their hospitality as 
gracefully, I hope, as it was offered. 

It was late when we got back to our own camp; we crossed the ridge 
almost at midnight, the sun was still above the horizon when we were on the 
summit, and once more marvellous mirages transformed the rocky coast 
line to vague enchanted shapes; a fairy land of gold, crimson, and mother- 
of-pearl. 

Both of us were tired and hungry; it had been an exciting day, and we 
had walked about twenty-two miles since a very meagre lunch. We specu- 
lated whether any of the Eskimos had found their way across the river ; it was 
really a relief to us that we found none of them around our camp when we 
arrived at last. Hornby woke up as we were having supper and joined 
us ; they had seen nothing more of the Eskimos and the river was now an 
impassable barrier. 

We started southward again next morning, it was almost a matter of 
regret to do so ; I should have liked nothing better than to have spent the 
summer with the Eskimos and become familiar with them, but this was 
quite out of the question under our circumstances. 

We moved south in the same leisurely manner that we had come north, 
making the same day's marches and stopping at the same camping places. 



{Toboggan anb pack 



213 



The weather kept delightfully fine, the sun never set , the country was famil- 
iar to us, and we could pick out the best route ; it was drier and better for walk- 
ing ; best of all our loads were not so heavy and steadily got lighter day by day. 
We spent a couple of days at Burnt Camp again ; this had been a kind 




aBMEHBSI 



Camp Comfort 



of outpost camp where we had left a cache of food and some of our things ; 
there was still a lot of caribou meat left and we were all well fed. We 
abandoned a lot of our stuff here, all our fur clothing, except a capote that 
Hornby kept, and our fur sleeping-bags, of which we were obliged to take 
a sorrowful farewell. Another treasured article left to its fate at this camp 
was an aluminum reflector baker that had done good service, but we had no 
flour nearer than Hodgson's Point now. These things and our furs had 
never gone farther than Burnt Camp anyhow. 



214 



Xanbs jforlom 



From this camp we struck right across the mountains, avoiding 
the big bend that the river makes; we made a new camp not far 
from our old Camp Basalt. We called it Camp Comfort and never 
was a name better deserved. It was on a little level grassy point, 
a small creek ran close to our tents, and we were surrounded by spruce 




Boulder Bed Camp in June 



that seemed quite big to us after the scrubby trees we had got used to. 

We got back to Boulder Bed on June 12th ; it was quite like getting home 
to return to this familiar place. We even had one of the severe north-west 
gales that seemed to blow with peculiar violence in this corner of the moun- 
tains, and our windbreak assumed proportions larger and more elaborate 
than ever. 

A few days more were spent here ; the Doctor had some final geological 
notes to make; the rest of us were hunting and making ready for the journey 
back to Lake Rouvier. We got two more caribou close to the camp, which 



{Toboggan anb |pack 215 

were very welcome, especially to the dogs. They had a good rest and all 
they could eat ; they were in splendid condition now. As a matter of fact 
we were all of us at our very best. 

A lot more stuff had to be abandoned here: one of the tents, a small 
sheet-metal tent stove that had been our best friend in the early days of the 
trip; clothes, tarpaulins, ammunition, snow-shoes, water-proof canvas 
bags, and a few tools; these things had all served their purpose. We had 
even a considerable quantity of food left, mostly corn-meal, erbswurst, and 
salt pork; our caribou hunting had been successful beyond expectation. 

We cached all the stuff carefully as Hornby had quite made up his 
mind to spend the summer and another winter in this country, and he 
intended to come back in the autumn as soon as the sleighing was good 
and haul this stuff to Lake Rouvier again. 

Saturday, June 15th, was the day of our departure, and a dull gloomy 
morning. We said good-bye to a camp where our experience had been on 
the whole so pleasant and successful, and struck across the mountains in a 
straight line for the narrows between the second and third Dismal Lakes. 
A sandy bar extends across the lake there; we intended to ford it at that 
point. 

We reached the summit of the long ridge between the Coppermine 
River and the Dismal Lakes, "The Palisades " we had called it. From here 
we had our last view of the Coppermine River and the Stony Creek valley. 

On our return from the Bloody Falls we had found the swift lower reaches 
of the river free of ice, though the shores were lined with stranded floes, and 
with masses of crushed ice shoved far up on the banks by jams. Along this 
part of it the current is not so swift, and the river was still covered with ice; 
indeed there was very little change in its appearance now from what it had 
been three weeks before. The ice was very rotten though and likely to go 
to pieces completely at any hour. Thus our experience of when this river 
is likely to be sufficiently free of ice to permit navigation checks very closely 
with Simpson's. 

To-day's march was one of the longest we had made. When we came 



216 Xanfcs jforlorn 

in sight of Dismal Lake it was evident that the water was so much higher 
that our plan of fording the narrows was quite impracticable. The ice in 
the lakes was still fairly intact, though there were wide spaces of open water 
around the shores. We hoped to be able to cross on the ice somehow, so 




Glacier Cove 

shaped our course for Glacier Cove where the Doctor and I had camped 
the preceding autumn, and where we knew we would find some spruce. 

We got to that familiar place in the evening ; one of our tents we put up 
at the identical spot on which it had been pitched nine months before ; we 
even drove our tent-pegs into the same holes, so little change takes place in 
this frozen country. 

But we didn't think Glacier Cove so pleasant a spot now as when we 
had camped there before. There was none of the lovely colouring that had 



{toboggan anb pack 



217 



made it so delightful on the former occasion, and the view of the ice-covered 
lake was not a cheerful one. The season was not nearly so far advanced 
here as it had been on the Coppermine River. 

The ice looked so rotten and so likely to break up if a high wind should 
come that we decided to cross as soon as possible. The Doctor wanted to 




Ferrying our Stuff to the Ice. 



look over that country to the north-west which we had been foiled so often 
in examining before. Hornby, Lion, and I hunted around for dry spruce logs 
out of which to build a raft. Fortunately we found a few trees big enough. 
Our knowledge of the country gained last year certainly came in useful 
to-day. We had another good illustration of how one's eye may be deceived 
by custom : the logs we got looked quite big to us and the raft seemed amply 
large to carry one of us ; when we came to launch it we realised how small 
these trees really are ; the Dolphin as we called it (one cannot natter a raft 
by the use of the feminine) would scarcely float myself. I made a precarious 



218 



Xanfcs jforlorn 



voyage out to the ice taking a heavy fishing line with me that Lion luckily 
had ; with this line we pulled the raft to and fro between the ice and the shore 
and soon had most of our stuff ferried over ready for a start when the 
Doctor came back. 

It was after seven in the evening before he returned; he had made a 




Crossing the Second Dismal Lake 



long trip to the north-west and had seen recent Eskimo footmarks. No doubt 
it is by some easier route to the west of the Coppermine River that these 
people find their way to the Dismal Lakes. 

In the course of the day the ice had moved so close to the shore that it 
was possible to get on it at a point a short distance from the camp ; we ferried 
the last loads over on our raft and got the dogs across at the point, except 
Jack, who wouldn't follow the others, but insisted on swimming out to 
me. 

We hauled the raft out of the water and loaded all our stuff on it ; we 
had built it something like a sleigh, with the intention of dragging it across 



toboggan anfc pack 



219 



the lake as we might require it on the other side. It took the united efforts 
of the entire party, men and dogs, to start that load; the ice was terribly 
difficult to walk on, the surface was melted by the sun into long sharp needles 
set at an angle like the teeth of a saw. The Dolphin slid along pretty well 
when we got it started, for the slant of the ice needles was in our favour. 




Teshierpi Camp Again 



At a long hook-shaped point on the other side, the ice was so close to the 
shore that it was not necessary to use the raft ; we broke it up and made a 
bridge of it from one ice-floe to another and then to the shore. The Good 
Hope had been both sleigh and canoe, but the Dolphin went one better and 
in addition to these was a bridge as well. 

We loaded up the dogs and headed over the north-west shoulder of 
Teshierpi Mountain for our old Teshierpi Camp. It was a heavy task climb- 
ing those steep grades ; we had all been working hard during the day, the 
Doctor more than any of us. As we crossed the shoulder of the mountain 



220 Xante forlorn 

I got a bearing of the sun at midnight to check up our time. There was only 
one watch in the party now that would run at all. 

A heavy shower came up from the south; we could see the clouds 
shutting out the hills with a blanket of rain, and when we got at last to our 




Eskimos at Teshierpi Camp 

old camp site it was raining heavily ; with the usual perversity of the weather 
this lasted only till we got our tents up. 

We took it easy next day. It was five in the morning before we had 
been able to turn in and we slept till afternoon. Lion went off hunting 
and met two Eskimo men that he brought into camp. These were not up 
to the standard of the other Eskimos we had seen in either looks or intelli- 
gence. We had no fresh meat so gave them some bacon ; they liked this raw 
well enough, but didn't seem to care for it cooked. They drank tea with 
apparent satisfaction, sugar was evidently quite distasteful to them, yet 



{Toboggan anb pach 



221 



the first man we had met the preceding summer had certainly enjoyed milk 
chocolate. 

Harry was very officious as cook and particularly anxious to impress on 
these men how important a person he was in our party. We gave them a 




Eskimo Hunting Ptarmigan 



few odds and ends, a tin bowl, and a nickle-plated metal fork apiece. They 
gave us to understand that their camp was not far away, so I went back with 
them. They were very slow walkers ; I was walking certainly not more than 
three miles an hour, but this pace quite distressed them ; they were panting 
heavily and the sweat rolling in streams down their wide glistening faces. 

Their camp was in fact three or four miles from ours; it was situated 
on a gravel hill overlooking the second Dismal Lake, near the first narrows. 



222 



Xante fforlorn 



There was an oldish woman and a younger one, and a small boy ; they were 

all ugly and not nearly so 
clever and bright as the 
others we had seen. 

They had a small wedge 
tent about 6'x6' made of 
caribou skins with the hair 
on. They had a kayak 
frame with them, the cover 
had been taken off, no doubt 
so that they could carry it 
more easily in a wind. 

It was about 10 p.m. 
when I was at their camp; 
the sun seemed so bright to 
me that I was quite misled 
when taking some pictures 
and under-exposed them 
badly. 

We turned out early 
next day; the Eskimos all 
came on the scene as we 
were having breakfast. I 
took some more pictures of 
them; they stood up and 
posed quite as I required 
them. As soon as I had got 
what I wanted they all 
turned around to see some- 
thing that interested them in the camp, so I got another almost equally 
interesting view! 

They had brought a lot of stuff that they wanted to trade : low seal- 




Looking Pleasant 



{Toboggan anb pack 



223 



skin shoes in stacks, lines made from the thick hide of large seals, and a kind 
of parchment made of young sealskin. Evidently all this stuff had been 
got ready in the winter, especially for trading purposes with the Indians. 
The sealskin shoes were far inferior to those worn by themselves; we had 




Harry and the Eskimos 



seen some of the lines used by the Indians, who value them highly for sleigh 
lashings. What the parchment was for I do not know. 

They were much dismayed when they found we didn't want anything, 
but we had all we could carry already. We gave the younger woman a fork 
like those we had given to the men, and to the old lady a large spoon. But 
she didn't want a spoon, it was a fork that she had set her heart on and was 
so anxious to have one that she offered stacks of sealskin shoes for it, then 
a big white wolf skin, and was finally ready to give almost anything she 
owned. But we hadn't any more forks to give away. I found out the 



224 



Xante tforlorn 



reason why she wanted a fork so badly, they prized them as combs; the kind 
of comb they make is narrow with long teeth and does in fact look rather 
like the lower part of a fork. 

Hornby's fur capote attracted her attention next ; it wasn't a good one, 
their own fur clothes were really much better. She put it on and went 




Kayak Frame and Double-Bladed Paddle 



through what I suppose was meant for some kind of a dance; she pranced 
around like a heavy draught mare in a sportive mood. The exhibition 
was truly absurd, so ridiculously unfit for dancing was the old girl. But 
no less preposterous are some of the exhibitions one sees nowadays 
in a country that is proud of its enlightenment, nor was this grossly 
silly old Eskimo dame one whit more extravagant in her folly than some 
"civilised" women I have since seen, whose sense of the fitness of 
things has been completely obsessed in their infatuation over a fashion- 
able craze. 



^Toboggan anfc pack 



225 



We said good-bye to the Eskimos and on June 18th we started on the 
last and longest of our day's journeys with packs. 

It was hot and fatiguing ascending the long grade to the divide, and 
for the first time this year we had mosquitoes in large numbers, though they 




Our Visitors 



were very feeble as yet. We kept to the east of the route followed when 
we travelled with the toboggans and found a good way over the hills to the 
left of Mountain Lake. At last we reached the downward slope on the 
other side of the divide and once more we got a distant view of Lake 
Rouvier far below us. 

As we got near the lake the difference in the progress of vegetation was 
very marked; on the south side of these hills the season was several weeks 
farther advanced than it had been around the Coppermine River. 

The dwarf birch were coming out in leaf; what a welcome sight were 

is 



226 



Xanbs tforlorn 



those first green and tender leaves of the year! The mosses were all shades 
of greens and browns; again we were reminded of some brilliant carpet 
by the close-packed masses of colour we walked over, but now the general 
tone was green. 




i 



And a Back View of Them 



The lake was still covered with ice, though it was very rotten and there 
was a wide water space around the shores. At the edge of the spruce woods 
on the western slope we saw some Eskimo tents and a number of musk-ox 
skins spread out over the big boulders, but there was no one in sight. 

Everything was all right at the little shack; there were signs that the 
Eskimos had made a large camp close to it since we had been here, but noth- 
ing had been disturbed. Even an axe, an article of inestimable value to 
them, was just where it had been left. 

It was late by the time we had tea; directly after Lion and I went to 



{Toboggan anb fl>acfe 227 

examine and launch the canoe. She was all right too, though the seams 
were sadly opened out and she leaked like a very sieve. We filled her with 
water, rather she did that herself and only too quickly, and we left her in 
a little bay to soak. 

It was arranged that Lion and I should take the canoe and most of the 
stuff down the river, while the others walked with the dogs. About four 
in the afternoon of the next day we made a start ; nothing had been seen of 
any Eskimos up to the time we left. 

It was a perfect joy to get into a canoe again, clumsy and leaky though 
she was. We thought of our last experiences coming down this river when 
hauling our toboggans, and contrasted this delightful mode of travelling 
with the constant worries and fatigues of packing with dogs. We coasted 
along the shore of the lake and entered the river; it was much lower than 
I expected to find it at this time of the year, and it was necessary to wade. 
We fell back into our old way of doing things very quickly : Lion carried a 
heavy pack along the shore and I hauled the boat over the shallow bars. 
But this was sport compared to hauling a toboggan, and better times would 
surely come. The camp we made that night, without the nuisance of the 
dogs, seemed positively ideal to us. 

The first two days of our journey were raw and cold with a high north 
wind. It was necessary to wade in many places on the upper reaches of the 
river and this was a miserably cold job. Heavy rains one evening made 
things worse. I hadn't even a coat, my fur cap6te had been abandoned at 
Camp Melville. Lion had always used a Mackinaw coat throughout the 
journey, and if I had the laugh on him a few times in the early part of the 
trip, it was his turn now. But these things didn't worry us; it might have 
been worse: we might have been hauling a toboggan, or staggering along 
under a pack. We sat in our snug tent over a steaming stew of wild goose 
that Lion had killed that afternoon, shot with a rifle on the wing, and 
thought of the camps we had made in snow and darkness, contrasting with 
them our present happy state. 

One after another we passed the familiar landmarks : here was Notman 



228 Xante jforlorn 

Dyke, here was the high bank where we had spent a particularly miserable 
night the November before. We had to stop every now and then to patch 
up our canoe ; if we struck a rock, no matter how gently, it knocked a hole 
in her, she was so frail and battered up after the hard usage of the trip that 
Hornby and Father Rouvier had made the previous summer. 

Our last camp on this journey was just above East River; we were both 
so stiff, chilled through from sitting in wet clothes all one cold windy day, 
that we could hardly crawl ashore. 

Then times changed for the better ; the weather turned warm and. placid 
once more, and navigation became easier. A great flow of water was coming 
down the East River, and the main Dease River was so high below the 
junction that no more wading was necessary. 

Our last day on the river was beautiful ; bright, warm, and calm ; a delight- 
ful contrast to the turbulent weather of the last two days ; the quiet stretch 
of the river above the canon was never more peaceful and lovely than to-day. 

I thought of our various former trips over this, the fairest part of all 
the river ; how we had seen it first in its very prettiest summer dress and at 
the very height of its summer activities. A couple of months after and it 
was late autumn, the banks frozen and ice forming along the shores, with 
the leaves all gone, the grass brown, the sedges withered and mournful, the 
birds hastening south, and over all the stern menace of the swiftly ap- 
proaching Arctic winter. 

I thought of the time we had come down this same stretch, painfully 
hauling our toboggans. Winter had now come in stern reality with darkness, 
desolation, and death. And again, four months later, when we hunted over 
these stark solitudes in vain; the thermometer at nearly — 50 , the river 
buried in vast drifts of snow, swept by the winter gales from the barrens 
above; the reign of death long established, final and complete — Thou 
fool! that which thou so west is not quickened except it die; life is inde- 
structible as energy or matter, a manifestation indeed of both. Here was 
life triumphant ; exuberant and rejoicing ; the river had resumed its„ ever- 
changing sky-dyed surface and its tranquil flow ; the grass and the willows 



{Toboggan anb pack 



229 



were greener than ever, and the dwarf birches more delicately beautiful. 
The musk-rats were alert and jubilant ; geese flew overhead, ducks circled 
at every bend, and ptarmigan ashore chirped to their just hatched little 
ones ; on every side there was activity and exultation. 




View on the Dease River 



Below the canon the river now ran a wild and frantic career, but we were 
too pleased at nearing home to let any rapids worry us, and we rejoiced in 
the swift rush. We swept past No. 1 Camp and saw the brush shelter that 
had been such a comfort to us on more than one occasion; it was hard to 
realise any conditions so rigorous to-day. 

The last reach was passed and the last rapid run ; we landed on the point 
that we had left buried under snow and ice and walked up to the house, 
perfectly stunned by the strangeness and difference of things. Everything 



230 



Xante forlorn 



looked so fresh and green ; now that they were in leaf the house seemed fairly 

buried among the willows, 
and big blue flowers 
abounded through the 
woods, adding a vivid touch 
to the bright colours. 
The house looked curiously 
high ; we cut the tin strips 
that sealed the door and 
found everything was just 
as we had left it. But the 
first impression of that in- 
terior, once so snug and 
attractive, was gloomy and 
dirty after the light and 
brightness we were used 
to of late. 

We started a fire, swept 
out the dust and sand that 
had shaken down from the 
roof, and the place soon 
resumed its familiar air of 
snugness and comfort. I 
was in the midst of a much- 
needed hot bath when the 
Doctor, Hornby, and 
Harry arrived with the 
dogs. We had a confused 
and disorderly supper ; but 
it was good to be home again and to find our party happily together 
under this well-proved shelter after our long journey and varied ex- 
periences. 




Limestone Walls of Canyons 



{toboggan anb pack 231 

The next few days were busily spent in making preparations for our 
voyage across the lake. 

Lion washed out the Aldebaran and varnished her; we had brought a 
tin of varnish for this express purpose. I had to develop all the pictures we 
had taken, then there was a great sorting out and selecting of the stuff we 
wanted to take with us. The load we could carry was strictly limited; it 
was heart-breaking to abandon some of our things, but there was no help 
for it ; only such as were indispensable could be taken, everything else had to 
be ruthlessly left. 

It was Hornby's intention to spend another winter in the country: 
many of the things, including some food supplies that were left, came in 
very useful to him. 

Father Rouvier was to return in the summer with another priest to 
carry on the work of converting the Eskimos. 

Perhaps it may be a pity that the latter cannot be left strictly 
alone; competent observers declare that civilisation means nothing but 
inevitable ruin and misery for them. But these deductions have been 
drawn from the fate of the Mackenzie River Eskimos where the conditions 
have been very different. At Coronation Gulf there is never likely to be 
a sudden inrush of civilisation in some of its lowest and least responsible 
forms, such as attended the booming of the whaling industry in the 
Beaufort Sea. 

By their fruits ye shall know them. My own observations of 
the work carried on by the Oblats Fathers of the Mackenzie River 
district gives me an unbounded respect for these devoted self-sacri- 
ficing men. Their organisation is excellent, their methods matchless, 
their men well chosen and well trained for the work, their motives 
command admiration. The Indians' debt to them is inestimable; to 
them they owe all that gives grace, encouragement, and consolation 
to their lives. 

We had already arranged with Father Rouvier that he could use our 
house the following winter, and he had undertaken to look after anything 



232 



Xante jforlorn 



we left there, so we carefully packed the stuff that might yet come in useful 
and piled it at the end of the house. 

The Francois family came on the last day, and we gave them many 
parting presents. They seemed quite affected at the prospect of our leaving, 




Good-bye 



more so than I would have imagined ; they hoped we would come back some 
day soon. 

We loaded the Aldebaran below the first rapids, where the Jupiter 
had been unloaded nearly a year before. We were gladdened by 
seeing old Jacob again just before we left, but the old fellow had 
come too late for the distribution of presents and we had nothing left 
to give him. 

The last good-byes were said to Hornby and our Indian friends; to 



{Toboggan an& pack 



233 



the dogs that had served us so faithfully and well; and to the dear little 
house that had been such a sure home and happy haven. The last pictures 
were taken and on Wednesday, June 26th, we started on our long voyage 
across the lake. 




We Begin Our Journey Across the Great Bear Lake 



IX 

HOMEWARD BOUND 

The Voyage of the "Aldebaran" 

OUR voyage in the Aldebaran across Great Bear Lake was in some 
respects the most exciting part of our adventures in the North. 
But as our real work had begun with our arrival at the Dease 
River and the starting of our various tasks for the summer, so did it end 
when we returned to Hodgson's Point from our spring journey to the 
Coppermine. Only a general account can be given of a voyage that was 
longer and more hazardous than we had anticipated. 

The Aldebaran was a big "freight" canoe made by the Peterborough 
Canoe Co. ; she was 18' 6" long, by 42" beam, and 18" deep amidship; built 
of basswood, in longitudinal strips, with close ribs. By the chances of 
construction that are familiar enough to any who have had much to do with 
small craft, she was rather more graceful in her lines than the ordinary big 
canoe built on that mould; we had remarked this on frequent occasions 
when direct comparison could be made. 

She was rigged with a lug sail; the cloth we had got at Edmonton; 
Lion and I had made the sail on our journey down the river in the Grahame. 
It was amply large for the boat, but we were experienced in handling canoes 
under sail and could go to extremes in this respect ; moreover we had pro- 
vided it with reef points so we could reef down in a high wind. Those reef 
points often came in very useful, particularly the first two days; more' than 

234 



Ibomewarb Bounb 235 

one occasion on this voyage tried our rigging and our skill to the limit, tried 
the mast especially which was made from a small fire-killed spruce that we 
had got near Smith's Landing. It was a very tough piece of wood ; I have 
seen that mast bend like a whip. 

When we left the Dease River we had a total load of over 900 lbs., ex- 
cluding ourselves, whose combined weights must have added more than 
450 lbs. 

Considering this heavy load the Aldebaran travelled very well; her 
unusually fine lines gave her good speed. But those big canoes are in fact 
very hard to handle; they are most unmanageable in a wind and difficult 
to steer when heavily loaded. 

Until we actually got out on Bear Lake we did not know in what 
condition the ice was. Such accounts as the Indians had given us were 
rather vague, but we hoped for the best and trusted to be able to get along 
somehow. 

The bay behind Big Island was quite clear, but when we passed the 
straits beyond old Fort Confidence we were dismayed to find the surface 
of the lake covered as far as the eye could see ; except for a small open space 
around the shore the ice lay intact as in winter. 

For the first two days of our voyage we had a strong north-east wind ; it 
kept the ice clear of the shore except at a few points where we had to shove 
through or carry and haul over. In spite of these delays at ice-jammed 
points we made good headway ; on the evening of the second day, when the 
wind had dropped to a dead calm, we were close to the mouth of the Hal- 
dane River and had come over ninety miles from Hodgson's Point. 

This part of the lake is inexpressibly dreary ; the shores are low with long 
points of gravel and small boulders ; the lake is shallow and there are many 
small low stony islands. No spruce trees grow within several miles of the 
lake and there was as yet no sign of reviving vegetation along this melan- 
choly ice-bound northern shore ; we had left summer behind us at the Dease 
River and were fated to see nothing more of it for nearly a month. The 
mosquitoes were the only things to remind us of the advancing season, 



236 



2lanbs ]forlorn 



and these came in swarms, although the temperature was never above 42 ° 
and occasionally down to the freezing point. We were obliged to wear 
mosquito veils and gloves again. 

At a point some three or four miles west of the Haldane River our 
further progress was completely barred by the ice ; it was jammed hard in this 
part of the lake, the strong north-east wind had broken it up to a small 





Detention Point 



extent, and the floes were driven between the islands and the mainland; 
out in the lake the ice was still quite solid. We were obliged to camp here 
and wait for warm weather and a high north-west wind. 

"Detention Point" was the name we gave our camp; it was near the 
extremity of one of the long low gravel points, characteristic of this part of 
the lake. There was a deep bay on either side of us ; both bays were clear 
of ice, but it was jammed hard along this and the next point. The bay to 
the east of us, on the shore of which we had made our camp, was about three- 
quarters of a mile across and more than a mile deep ; at the end of it was a 
wide sandy beach. The Haldane River came from the north to within a 



Ibomewarfc Bounb 



237 



mile or so of this beach, then it made a bend to the east and discharged into 
another bay beyond. 

There were no spruce trees nearer than two or three miles, but we had a 
soft mossy place for our tents and plenty of driftwood for our fire. 

Behind our camp was a low knoll of small boulders; it rose prob- 




Camp at Detention Point 



ably not more than fifteen feet above the level of the lake, but it was 
the highest point for some miles around and served us as a good 
look-out. 

It was the morning of June 27th when we made camp on Detention 
Point. Day after day went by, but the ice remained unchanged. The sun 
looked like a dull disc of silver set in the sky and seemed to have no more 
power. There was a kind of fine mist in the air during the day when the 
sun was high; at night time, when the sun got near the horizon, we usually 
had clear skies, and sometimes very beautiful clouds. We saw the sun at 



2 3 8 



Xante iforlorn 



midnight for the last time at this camp ; only part of its disc was visible over 
some mountains far to the north. 

We spent the time fishing, hunting, sleeping, and eating ; there were very 
few signs of caribou and those all old ; they may have been made the previous 




The Midnight Sun 



autumn. There were a few ducks and geese, but our fishing was most 
productive. Trolling with a rather large spoon bait we caught lake trout as 
we wanted them; they were a most delicious fish ; firm and fat, like all those 
fish of the large northern lakes where the temperature is near the freezing 
point all the year around. Those we got averaged about 1 1 lbs. with curi- 
ously little variation from this weight. The smallest we ever got weighed 
7>^ lbs., the largest 20^ lbs., but somewhere around 10 to 12 lbs. was the 
usual thing. 



Ibomewarb Bounb 239 

The fishing never failed us at any time we tried it ; we always trolled in 
the bays, not off the points as Hanbury recommends; but of course the 
fish may have different habits at different times of the year. 

The weather kept the same all the time ; the days were cold, the sun was 
usually visible but with no more apparent power than the moon. The 
nights were usually clear, sometimes with a touch of frost. 

Though the sun seemed so feeble and though the ice appeared so little 
altered from day to day it was in fact swiftly disintegrating and the chill and 
mist were caused by the rapid formation of water vapour from the melting 
ice. It was unapparent to us, but the good work was going on all the time. 

On July 3d, after nearly a week of impatient waiting, a wind at last 
sprung up from the north and moved the ice out so that we could make our 
way along the shore again. We broke camp and started; after making 
about seven miles under sail the wind dropped and then came up so strong 
from the west that we could make no headway against it at all. It doesn't 
take a very strong head wind to stop one of these big canoes. 

We were obliged to camp again, but towards evening the wind dropped 
and we could take to our paddles once more. The wind had opened up a 
channel along the shore nearly half a mile wide ; we kept steadily at our 
paddles all that night, except when we stopped for lunch at midnight. This 
was on a very pretty point ; the spruce came close to the lake here and we 
were chilly enough to appreciate a good big fire. We were all tired; it re- 
quired an exertion of self-denial bordering on the sublime to leave that 
pleasant camping place and resume the weary job of paddling. 

As we got farther west the open channel became narrower, occasionally 
we paddled among ice-floes with new ice forming on the water between them ; 
the shores became higher and more forbidding, the outlook more and more 
gloomy. 

It was dead calm and the surface was covered with the small spikes 
and spars of freshly forming ice. Crossing one bay in particular we were 
much impeded by slush forming along the sides of the canoe just below the 
water line. It was a curious phenomenon and one that I am quite unable to 



240 Xanbe tforlorn 

account for. Before and since I have paddled over calm water on which 
ice was just forming but never saw this peculiar formation of slush on the 
boat except on this occasion. The conditions, whatever they were, that 
made the slush form lasted only about half an hour, although ice was form- 
ing for several hours and we passed through various areas of it in various 
stages of formation. 

It was a serious check to us while it did last ; it was not readily seen by 
the eye and we didn't realise what it was for a while until an accumulation 
near the bows made so much noise that Lion shoved his paddle along the 
water line to see what was the matter, and to our surprise scraped off the 
slush in masses like water-soaked snow. It extended abaft the beam and 
formed very quickly. 

In my notes at the time I have written : "Was this in fact what happened 
to the Fram off the coast of Asia that Nansen attributed to and called 
'Dead water?' 

Early in the morning we passed the eastern point of a deep bay; a 
couple of islands are just inside this point ; they are shown on the excellent 
map made by J. M. Bell, a map that we had with us and which we found 
helpful and accurate, at least as regards the part of the lake he had travelled 
over. Hanbury made the traverse across the lake from this point. He 
calls it Traverse Point and the bay Traverse Bay. He mentions the two 
islands near the point ; we had expected to find something bigger. They 
are in fact mere gravel reefs. 

We camped that morning on a high point to the west of Traverse Bay ; 
it was a terribly bleak and desolate place, but the ice prevented any further 
progress. We had a good look over the lake from here, the highest ground 
we had been on for some time. 

Smith's Bay is about twenty miles wide at this part; it was solid with 
ice and no traverse was possible for us till this broke up. 

Our camp was a very disagreeable one; there was no driftwood any- 
where along the shore ; some poles of a very ancient teepee that stood on a 
point a little farther on served us for fuel. We were all much fatigued; we 



Ibomewarb 3Bount> 



241 



had been travelling more or less for twenty-four hours and had paddled 
nearly forty miles. We didn't spend much time worrying over the appear- 
ance of our camp that morning, but turned in and had a good sleep till 
afternoon. 

At 8 p.m. the ice had opened up enough to let us get a little farther ahead. 




Sand Hills Camp and the Little Lake 



We paddled for a few miles along that dismal gravelly shore, mostly thread- 
ing our way among ice-floes. Then we came to another large shallow bay 
with a prominent island off its western point. The bay was packed full of 
ice, broken up into floes of various sizes, and we had to camp again, but by 
this time the character of the shore had changed, and we were able to pick 
out a very snug and pretty spot for our tent among a charming little grove of 
spruce that grew in the sheltered corner of a high sandy hill overlooking 
the lake. It was a hard job to pack our stuff up that hill, but the camp 
we had on the summit made the work worth while. From our camp we 



16 



242 



2Lan&0 forlorn 



had a fine view of the lake, though the prospect was not an encouraging 
one. 

Sand Hills Camp we called it ; behind our camp was a delightful little 
lake surrounded by spruce ; why it should have been there at the top of a 
sandy hill we couldn't imagine, but there it was. 




An Indian Grave 



The country behind was nothing but short, steep, sandy hills, 
covered with plenty of moss and with fairly large spruce trees set at 
regular open intervals. Small lakes abounded among these hills; about 
a mile behind our camp was a larger one, a beautiful sheet of water very 
irregular in shape, with spruce-covered points, little islands, and curious 
bays. 

Farther along the sandy hill was an old Indian grave; its palisades 
were much weathered and probably more than fifty years old. Around 
it the moss grew thick and soft, behind was the forest, in front the b>ound- 



Ibomewarfc Bounb 243 

less lake, and over all the infinite unobstructed sky. One could scarcely 
wish for a more pleasant resting-place. 

We spent several days at Sand Hills ; the ice had us shut in so absolutely 
that we could not even fish, except from the shore near the mouth of a little 
stream where Lion caught some small blue-fish with a rod and a little spin- 
ning bait. We hunted assiduously but got only two or three ptarmigan 
all the time we were there. It was a pleasant enough country to look at 
but very destitute of any animal life. 

On July 8th, the ice opened out so that we could cross the bay. Sand 
Hills Camp was a comfortable one, and there was not much to be gained by 
going ahead as we were already at about the nearest point to make the 
traverse. However, anything was better than inaction so we loaded our 
canoe again and went farther west. We crossed the bay, passed the island 
at the western end of it, and rounded a headland of high gravel hills quite 
bare of any trees. 

Beyond this headland a small river discharged into what appeared to 
be a deep narrow bay ; westward of this bay a high, steep, sandy ridge runs 
parallel, and close to the lake, the immediate shore is low level turf -covered 
gravel with a fair amount of spruce along the ridge. The beach is stony, 
farther out the lake bottom is fine sand and clay. 

We camped on the level space below the high sandy ridge where there 
was a good place for our tents. Here were some old signs of a former camp 
that we thought might have been made by Dease. 

We were getting somewhat anxious now over the persistent continuance 
of the ice. Our steamer was due to leave Fort Norman in the beginning of 
August ; if we failed to connect with this we would have to either track our 
boat up the Mackenzie River or descend to Fort Macpherson and attempt 
to get out by way of the Porcupine and Yukon rivers. Neither of these 
alternatives was a pleasant prospect to us. In 1837, Ritch of Dease and 
Simpson's expedition was delayed by ice at Gros Cap till the beginning of 
August. Towards the end of July we ourselves had seen the shore to the 
north of that cape lined with ice. In the second week of August, Ritch 



244 Xante fforlorn 

could hardly make the traverse from Acanyo Island. The ice looked so 
solid and the weather kept so cold that it seemed quite possible a similar 
experience might be in store for ourselves. Since our arrival at Sand Hills 
Camp the weather had been colder, with fresh ice forming among the floes 
almost every night. 

The high ridge behind our camp gave us a good view over the lake. 
A lane of open water about a quarter of a mile wide extended along the shore 
as far as we could see to the west. The high land on the opposite side of 
Smith Bay was visible, but nothing could be seen of the ice conditions along 
the shore on that side. The prevailing winds had always been from some 
northern quarter, and we might find it a harder job to get along the south 
shore of the bay than the north. No map shows the end of Smith Bay 
correctly. Bell had crossed near this point so his valuable map was of no 
further use to us. In his report Bell says that the extent of the lake west- 
ward is much greater than hitherto supposed. After a long consultation we 
decided to go ahead and see what the end of the bay looked like, and next 
morning we made an early start. 

It was a fine day, with a fresh north- north- west wind, but the shore 
usually afforded shelter and we were not hindered by ice. For the first 
eight or ten miles we found the coast of a pleasing character; the shore is 
generally low, often with small spruce coming close to the lake. Then came 
a high gravel point, barren and gloomy, with snow-drifts in places right to 
the water's edge ; the last snow we had seen had been on the Coppermine 
Mountains. Everything about Smith Bay seemed to indicate severe 
conditions in winter and a long-delayed spring. Beyond this barren point 
there is a wide bay with a sandy beach and a delightfully pretty little river 
discharging into the lake. We called it Sleigh River from finding an old 
runner sleigh on the bank near it. To the west of this bay there is another 
bare gravel ridge; it rises perhaps a hundred feet above the surface of the 
lake and forms a prominent headland. From the summit of this point we 
obtained a good view of the end of the bay. The north-west corner is 
rounded and regular, the western shore appeared to be very high land also 



1bomewart> BounD 



245 



and regular in outline. In the south-west corner there appeared to be an 
entrance to another bay which extended as far as we could see from here. 
We thought it was about five or six miles across at the mouth ; on its south- 
east side was another high smoothly rounded hill. 

The north-west corner of the bay was clear of ice, but we were not sure 



T 
-■-.*-g2?*«-»— f 


-^M 


^ m j 


■<*';< '..; "". . ^ ■ 




a*. * 






^H 



Waiting 



about the traverse across the bay in the south-west and the whole prospect 
looked so uncertain that we decided to return to our camp by the high ridge, 
and await the pleasure of the weather. We paddled back that same day 
while we still had open water ; it was midnight when we got back to the 
old camping spot. We felt as though we had drawn back from some kind 
of a trap. 

It proved an exceedingly lucky thing for us that we had turned back. 
The next day was dull and threatening with a strong east wind. We amused 
ourselves hunting ptarmigan and catching lake trout. During the night 



246 Xante jforlorn 

it rained heavily ; we had put up both our tents ; the Doctor was in one and 
Lion and I in the other. At five in the morning I was wakened by the 
rattling of our pots blowing about. The long wished-for gale had come at 
last ; it was blowing furiously from the north-west. Lucky indeed for us that 
we had stayed on this northern side of the bay ! 

I turned out to look around; the Doctor's tent was flat on the ground 
with the Doctor sleeping resignedly under the ruins. Lion and I had to 
build a brush windbreak at once to save our own from the same fate, yet 
we were not in an exposed place. The storm raged all day; by six in the 
evening there was not a vestige of any ice between us and Acanyo Island, 
though we could see it packed along the shores, both to the east and west in 
fields of floes. 

The weather moderated and we made the traverse next day; a heavy 
swell was still running but the wind had fallen to a gentle breeze and we 
sailed most of the way across. I saw sandy bottom several times as we 
made the traverse; the lake was only eight or ten feet deep in places here. 
It was at this place that Bell had crossed Smith Bay; he calls the island 
L'Isle Sans Arbres; we always spoke of this as Acanyo Island, as two islands 
are shown on Franklin's chart in about this position, and we had supposed 
these were the same as LTsle Sans Arbres. The chart I speak of as Frank- 
lin's was in fact made by Richardson, who was associated with Franklin 
on his second journey, and who spent part of the summer of 1826 in exploring 
Great Bear Lake between its outlet and the mouth of the Dease River. But 
there are several low sandy islands farther to the east, one of them several 
miles in length. These may be Richardson's Acanyo Island, though they 
do not lie in the same direction relative to each other. 

The ice was broken up and packed in a dense field of floes along the 
coast to the east. We could get no farther, but were fortunately able to 
reach the mainland at the entrance of a deep bay behind L'Isle Sans Arbres, 
which Bell called Ice Bound Bay. We made a very comfortable camp about 
a mile inside the bay; we had got to a different looking country now, the 
plants and shrubs were in greater variety, many of them new and unfamiliar 



Ibomewarb Bounfc 247 

to us; the spruce trees were larger than anything we had seen for a year. 
Ice Bound Bay is in fact a pretty sheet of water; what we saw of its eastern 
shore is low and densely forested near the water; behind these woods rise 
the high Eta-Tcho Mountains. The western shore is varied and hilly with 
the spruce more scant and sparse. 

Again we were reduced to watchful waiting, we put in the time fishing 
and hunting; bears' signs were plentiful and recent, but we saw no bears; 
the fishing as usual was more profitable, so we laid in a good supply of trout 
while we had the chance ; the ice might close in at any time and prevent us 
from fishing. We trolled in a little bay near the point ; every time we made a 
turn around that bay we caught a trout, until we had enough to keep us for 
several days. They weighted 7^, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, io>£, 11, n>£ lbs. 
I give the weights as they show how very uniform in size were these fish 
that we caught. 

Our stay at Ice Bound Bay was shorter than we had dared to hope. 
On the evening of the day after making the traverse a gentle breeze sprang 
up from the south, and the ice began to move out in the lake, soon leav- 
ing a free passage for us along the shore. We struck camp at once and made 
about ten miles that night ; the fair weather held next day and we continued 
our voyage until evening; paddling all day long against an incessant troubled 
swell, though there was not a breath of wind, and the sun was brighter and 
warmer than we had seen it since leaving the Dease River. 

The ice still kept moving away from the shore, though there had been 
very little wind ; at the latter part of the day we could see only its brilliant 
white line far out on the lake. In the evening we came to a fresh barrier 
of broken ice that had evidently been packed in a large bay on the northern 
side of the peninsula. The shore was lined with floes to a depth of a hundred 
yards or more, and a field of them shaped like a long tongue stretched across 
the bay. 

While coasting along the edge of the ice we saw a big brown bear gravely 
walking around on the top of a hill close to the shore; it was four or five 
hundred yards away, too far to shoot from a canoe rocking in a swell. We 



248 %m\be jforlorn 

managed to shove through the floes and to land, but by that time the bear 
had found business elsewhere, and we saw no more of him. He was an im- 
mensely powerful brute ; seen through glasses his big shoulders and enorm- 
ous quarters had something almost elephantine about them. 

We had to make a long detour out in the bay to find a place in the ice- 
field where the floes were open enough to allow us to pass, but we were able 
to shove through, and camped on a bleak point at the western side of the 
bay; it was too late to attempt the traverse that night. The beach was 
lined with big boulders that made landing a rather risky job in the constant 
swell. 

It blew from the north-east next day ; the ice closed in on the point and 
the floes ground against the boulders in a heavy swell. We were held up 
till evening much against our will ; we were losing a fair wind and there was 
something particularly unpleasant in the location of our camp. We had a 
fairly good spot for our tent, but the exposed situation and those big boulders 
that lined the shore made a very disagreeable impression. The swell 
moderated by evening ; we managed with some risk and difficulty to launch 
and load our canoe over the grinding floes, and at 9 p.m. we started under 
sail. 

The wind increased again ; it is about twelve miles across the bay and 
we made the traverse in only a little over two hours ; in spite of her heavy 
load the Aldebaran ran swiftly and gracefully through the constantly rising 
sea. As we rounded the coast leading to Gros Cap the wind got stronger 
and ever stronger, but we had a windward shore and at least the water was 
quiet. 

We scudded across the well-remembered bay where fogs and calms had 
held us up in the Jupiter; we were reefed down now with our mast bending 
like a reed and the boat buried to the gunwales in foam. The strong wind 
lasted till we rounded Gros Cap ; then it died away very suddenly, and we 
took to our paddles until we got to the best place to begin the traverse across 
Richardson Bay. We were well satisfied with our night's run ; we had come 
nearly thirty-five miles in eight hours. 



Ibomewarb Bounb 249 

On the morning of July 17th we made the traverse, and our voyage 
henceforth was unmitigated pleasure. All the ice had been left behind 
us ; the end of our journey was in easy sight ; there was nothing to worry us, 
and we could, give ourselves up to complete enjoyment of a delightful canoe 
voyage on beautiful waters along an interesting coast. The weather 
kept fine and tranquil; the latter part of our voyage was a succession of 
halcyon days; indeed we were in a humour to appreciate and enjoy them 
after the experiences of the last three weeks. 

On the evening of July 19th we arrived at the little Indian settlement 
at the end of the lake. To our surprise the place was completely deserted ; 
not a soul was there. The Indians had not yet come up the river from Fort 
Norman. As they come back to the lake soon after the arrival of the first 
steamer we supposed something might have happened to delay her, and 
began to entertain hopes that we might even yet catch this boat on her first 
south-bound trip. 

We paddled across to Little Lake, intending to camp that night at our 
old place where we had refitted the Jupiter. As we entered the narrow 
channel to the lake we saw some Indians camped farther along the shore. 
We went to interview them; they were some of the women folk of the Bear 
Lakers who had gone to Fort Norman, and could only tell us that the Indians 
had not come back and they did not know when to expect them. 

We had tea at our old camp site ; no one had been there since our last 
visit in the Jupiter; odds and ends of our former stay lay around as though 
we had never been away at all ; here were a pair of shoes that had begun a 
protracted career of useful service by tracking up a river a far way from the 
Great Bear Lake and had finally worn out on their long hard walk up the 
banks of the Bear River ; the stakes we had used for our mosquito bars were 
still standing, and we lit our fire with the chips made when converting the 
Jupiter's steering sweep into a mast. 

Our tea was a somewhat solemn one, yet cheerful withal ; the place 
recalled vividly our thoughts and general frame of mind when we had 
camped here last, more than a year before. Our adventures had then been 



250 ILanfcs jforlorn 

all before us, and we could look back with satisfaction and pleasure on the 
good fortune that invariably had been our lot. 

The more we thought over the non-arrival of the Indians the more 
likely it seemed to us that we might yet catch the steamer. The Indians 
make the trip up Bear River in a week; the steamer takes about eight days 
on her round trip to the posts below Fort Norman. Supposing that the 
Indians had left within the same time of the steamer's arrival as they had 
done the previous year our chance of catching her was a very good one. 

Although it was then nine at night and we were all pretty tired after a 
long day's journey, we decided to continue on our voyage until either we met 
the Indians on their way up the river, or until we got to Fort Norman. 

We entered the Bear River at ten, taking almost with regret a last view 
of that great inland sea that had been so welcome a sight twelve months 
before and that had on the whole treated us in such a friendly way. 

The swift current of the Bear River seized on the Aldebaran as a mere 
plaything and hurried us down at a bewildering speed. The night had 
become overcast, and it was dusk enough to make steering down some of the 
swifter places a matter of risk and difficulty. But we felt that the time 
had come to take chances ; we imagined ourselves arriving at Fort Norman 
just in time to see the steamer pass out of sight to the south ; every minute 
was of consequence to us now. 

About ten miles below the lake we passed some Indians camped on the 
river bank. They were on their way from Fort Norman; none of them 
understood any English or French, but we made out that Father Rouvier 
and the rest of the Indians were on their way up the river a day's journey 
behind, and that the steamer had sailed on Sunday down-stream. It was 
now Friday; they meant Sunday a week before the last, but we didn't 
know that at the time ; their information confirmed us in our hopes and we 
kept on our reckless course through the uncertain light. 

At two in the morning we arrived at a large camp ; the whole outfit 
was here ; Father Rouvier, Father Le Roy, Johnny Sanderson, and Jimmie 
Soldat, and the rest of the Indians. 



Ibomewarfc Bounfc 



251 



We roused Johnny and turned out Father Rouvier; our first question 
was about the steamer, and we learned to our grief that she had sailed south 
the Monday before. Our hopes had been very lively, but they had origi- 
nated only a few hours before and we soon got over our disappointment. 




Bear River near Bear Lake 



Father Rouvier was making his way back to the Dease River; he had 
a companion priest with him, Father Le Roy, and the Indian Jimmie Soldat. 

It was no use going any farther that night ; we put up our tent and the 
Fathers came around and had a good feed of pounded meat and grease. We 
still had a fair supply of this favourite dish of the North, but it was a treat 
to the Fathers, who had been strangers to it for some months. 

We told Father Rouvier of our doings since he had said good-bye to us 
four months before, and in turn he told us the latest accounts of the great 



252 



Xante fforlom 



world. The loss of the Titanic was the news which made the greatest 
impression on us. It was after four in the morning when we turned in, and 
our untimely arrival and disturbance had so upset the camp generally that 
they did not get started till nearly ten that day. 




Indians Tracking Up-Stream 



The morning was bright and warm ; it seemed oppressively hot to us. 
Judging by our senses alone I should have guessed a temperature of certainly 
over 8o°, perhaps as much as 90 , in the shade. A sling thermometer 
recorded 62 which shows how little mere sensation may be relied on; we 
had become so accustomed to the uniform cold weather on the lake that we 
were quite incapable of judging. 

We saw the outfit get started, thankful now at any rate that we were 
not travelling in the same direction. They had nothing but canoes; the 



Ibomewarb ffiounb 



253 



Fathers and Jimmie Soldat had a new big canoe with a heavy load. Hornby 
had been hoping that they could bring him in some supplies ; they had been 
quite unable to do this and we were glad to think that he was well fixed 
for several months at least with what we had been able to leave him. 




The Fathers on their Journey up the Bear River 



As soon as the others had started, we struck camp ourselves and con- 
tinued our journey down the river. It was a different thing steering in full 
daylight to what it had been in the doubtful twilight of the night before, 
and the swift motion was delightful. 

We ran the rapids in triumph ; they are really safe and easy enough to 
run, though so hard to ascend, especially with a York boat ; the difficulties 
are due mostly to the perilous character of the shores. We realised here 
that the water was much lower this year than it had been the previous one, 
and the ice cliffs were not nearly so formidable now as they had been on our 



254 



Xan&a tforlorn 



journey up. The Franklin Mountains looked very fine and we were in a much 
more favourable mood to admire them than when we had seen them last. 

We camped early that afternoon; we did not want to arrive at Fort 
Norman late in the evening and time was of no object to us now. We had 




Mount Charles — From the East 



come back to regular summer again; after being strangers to them for a 
long while we saw poplar and birch, beautiful in their full pride of early 
summer; the size and variety of the trees were quite bewildering to us after 
the invariable small spruce that we had become so accustomed to. 

Resuming our journey next day, we floated swiftly down the lovely 
lower reaches of the river; Bear Rock rose higher every minute and soon 
the great Mackenzie River came in sight and the snowy summits of the far 
distant Rocky Mountains. 

At two in the afternoon we left the clear waters of the Bear River behind 



Ibomewarfc Bounb 



255 



us, a last good-bye to an old friend ; muddy waters were to be our highway 
henceforth for many weeks to come. 

I am bound to say that our arrival at Fort Norman was very flat ; we 
had pictured the hearty welcome and general interest that are the conven- 
tional reward of travellers when they arrive at the first remote outposts 




Our Camp at Fort Norman in July, 19 12 



of civilisation. The first people we saw were two priests taking a Sunday 
walk along the shore; our arrival was a matter of complete indifference to 
them ; they did not even return our greeting, but simply turned their backs 
and continued their stroll. Why the very birch and poplar trees had given 
us a better welcome than this ! 

We landed below the place where Hornby and Melville had been camped ; 
some of the other inhabitants of the post now showed up, Hodgson and his 
son; Fair, the factor of the Northern Trading Co., and an old trapper called 
Store. They gave us a kindly hand to land our stuff and to carry it up the 



256 



Xanbe forlorn 



steep bank to the place where we had decided to locate our camp. We 
put the tents up and had everything shipshape before seeing any more 
of Fort Norman. 

How woefully disappointed we were in our welcome we have seen ; the 
first inhabitants we met at this post had greeted us by turning their backs. 




Family Birch Bark Canoe 

Worse, far worse, was to follow. Instead of being hospitably entertained 
at the factor's house, it was the factor who came to our camp and was 
hospitably entertained by us; we could even produce a bottle of cognac to 
celebrate the occasion! 

It is true that we had failed to conform to the convention requiring 
that the explorer should come to the first post ragged and half starved, eat- 
ing his moccasins and mits. So it was really all our fault in both cases, and 
we only got the proper punishment that in some shape or other is inevitably 
meted out to all offenders against convention. And our good friend, Mr. 



1bomewar& ffiounb 



257 



Leon Gaudet, was as heartily welcome to us as doubtless we would have been 
to him had our condition been properly miserable. 

Our stay at Fort Norman proved much longer than we had anticipated. 
The first fortnight after our arrival passed pleasantly enough ; the weather 
was invariably fine and warm, our camp was comfortably situated and 




Roman Catholic Mission 



commanded a lovely view; the last four months had been fairly strenuous 
work and the rest was welcome enough. Then we had a chance to observe 
the life at a fur trading post under its usual conditions instead of at the times 
of abnormal activity attending the arrival of the steamer, the only occasions 
on which we had seen them hitherto. 

Little enough indeed went on ; our own life at Hodgson Point in winter 
time was scarcely less devoid of incident. We became better acquainted 
with Father Ducot of the Mission, and with Mr. Hodgson, two men of great 
experience in the North w T ho had many interesting things to tell us. 



2 5 8 



Xante jforlorn 



The Fathers showed us around their church with justifiable pride ; it 
was profusely decorated inside with paintings on the wood of the structure, 
the result of incredible care and pains. 

Once in a while a party of Indians would come in and pitch their tepee on 
the beach, and after getting a few things in trade, would go off to hunt again. 




Indian Camp at Fort Norman 



The trading store was like a small, rather badly stocked country store. 
The quality of the goods carried was generally excellent, a feature of the 
Hudson Bay Co.'s fur trading stores that deserves the highest praise. 
Everything was very expensive but not unduly so, considering the difficulties 
and distance of transport, and the high quality of the goods; in this respect 
Fort Norman would probably compare very favourably with the towns on 
the Yukon. 

When trading they allowed only one Indian in the store at a time ; if 
more than one was allowed to enter the others would give so much advice 



1bomewart> Bounfc 



259 



that the negotiations would never come to a conclusion. Their be- 
haviour in the store was exactly like that of uncertain children. I 
watched an Indian select six "skins" worth of stuff one day. He 
was fairly dazzled and confused with such wealth to choose from. He 
took a little tea and a little tobacco, then came a long mental strug- 




The Skin Boat 



gle between a black ostrich feather and a blue leather peaked cap. 
The ostrich feather finally carried the day, and he took it away in 
triumph. Truly "the first spiritual want of a barbarous man is de- 
coration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in civilised 
countries." 

A party of Montagnais Indians turned up at the post one day from some 
far eastern tributary of the Mackenzie. They had killed a number of moose 
and with the skins for cover and saplings for a frame they had built a large 
boat and journeyed down the river bringing in the meat. Some of it was 



260 Xante ]forIorn 

dry, and some fresh, or green would be a better term, unless for choice and: 
truth one said simply rotten. 

The boat showed great ingenuity in design and construction, and was 
really a thoroughly serviceable craft. 

As soon as they had disposed of their meat, they crossed the river and 
struck by some overland trail back to their hunting grounds on the eastern 
slope of the Rockies. They sold their boat to the factor of the Northern 
Trading Co. who broke it up for the skins. 

The Mackenzie River was due to arrive on August 1st; the date came, 
but not the steamer ; the days passed and still there was no sign of her. 

Our stay at Fort Norman had hitherto been agreeable enough, but now 
ensued a period of anxiety and uncertainty; there was no way of telling 
what had happened to delay the boat nor even whether she could come 
at all. 

We thought a good deal of attempting to get out by way of the Yukon, 
but this was a long trip and not to be entered on lightly at that time of the 
year. If we had been reasonably certain of getting help at Fort McPherson 
to carry our stuff over the eighty -mile portage to the Porcupine River we 
would not have hesitated; but if we failed to get this help, as we well might, 
our condition would be worse than ever. 

We had arrived at the beginning of summer; we saw things come to 
maturity with astonishing swiftness. Then came the pause of consumma- 
tion ; Time had completed his gifts and was soon to confound them. 

The nights got darker and colder; the dusk beginning to close in 
about ten in the evening affected us most as a sign of the rapidly passing 
season. 

It was part of the day's routine to stroll up the river shore in the after- 
noon, the time at which the steamer was most likely to arrive. A short 
walk above the post took us to a point from where we had a view of ten or 
twelve miles up the river. We would sit on the big driftwood logs thrown 
up in great numbers by the high spring water, whittling the soft dry cotton- 
wood sticks and hoping every time we looked up that we might see the 



Ibomewarb Bounb 261 

steamer rounding the point in the distance. Any moment might bring 
her, but day after day passed in continual expectation and continual 
disappointment. 

At last we decided that if the steamer did not come by August 21st, we 
would start for Fort McPherson and take a chance on being able to cross 
the divide and reach the Yukon before the steamers on that river were laid 
up for the winter. 



X 



STEAMER AND SCOW AGAIN 



ON August 17th, we were just getting ready for tea at our camp, when 
there was a great shouting at the post and we saw the flags go up 
at the various flagstaff s. Our long wait had come to an end ; the 
steamer had arrived at last; there she was rounding the point above the 
post where we had so often watched for her in vain ; she seemed strangely- 
small out on that great stream. 

Our old friend, Captain Mills, was not on board; he had been engaged 
in building another steamer on the upper Athabasca. But we had the 
pleasure of meeting Mr. Pearce again ; and Captain Mills s successor, Cap- 
tain King, well sustained the high standard of courtesy that we had been 
used to in all our dealings with the Hudson Bay Co. 

We broke our long-settled camp with few regrets; the Al debar an was 
loaded up again and we were soon settled on board the Mackenzie River 
once more. 

A long and weary road still lay before us ; two months were yet to elapse 
before we got to the end of our journey ; two months of slow progress and hard 
struggle against the river that had brought us down so swiftly and so easily. 

We had seen the turn of the season while waiting for the steamer ; now 
we saw the days shorten with redoubled speed as the sun receded and as 
each day found us in a lower latitude. 

We left Fort Norman on the morning of August 18th and on the evening 
of August 29th we arrived at Fort Smith. 

262 



Steamer an& Scow Hgain 263 

The Grahame had gone south several weeks before; fortunately we had 
brought our old reliable Aldebaran with us on the steamer and were still in 
plenty of time to connect with a scow that the Hudson Bay Co. were sending 
up the river from Fort Chipewyan. 

We had all our stuff, including the canoe, sent over by waggon to Smith's 
Landing, and walked there ourselves ; within twenty-four hours of the time 
we had arrived at Fort Smith, the Aldebaran was once more loaded up and 
we were under way again in our own craft. It was her last voyage and in 
some respects the most pleasant. 

The Slave River above Smith's Landing is swift, but the rocky points 
make so many eddies that we could take advantage of these and so paddled 
most of the way. 

The weather was delightful, warm days with cold nights and misty 
mornings , regular early Canadian autumn at its best. This part of the 
journey is very beautiful; there is more variety in the trees and constant 
charm; there were no flies and we had plenty of time; altogether the last 
voyage of the Aldebaran was to us one of unalloyed pleasure. 

We reached Fort Chipewyan on September 3d; the lake was much 
lower, and what on our way down had been open water between the 
post and the entrance of the Rocher River was now great level plains of mud 
with the river winding among them, and the rocky islands looking strangely 
out of place in a desert of alluvial silt. The Grahame was there, about to be 
laid up for the winter ; we took up our quarters on board with the Hudson 
Bay Co.'s officers who were going out on the scow, and there we awaited the 
arrival from Fond-du-lac of the tug Primrose that would tow the scow as 
far as Fort Mackay. 

The Primrose arrived from the end of the lake on September 10th; the 
Grahame was moored for the winter in a secluded "sny " l and on September 
13th we started on the last lap of a long journey, the longest at least in point 
of time, and the part of it that was to impose a greater strain on our patience 
than anything that had happened to us yet. 

1 Corruption of chenal. 



264 



Xante forlorn 



Besides ourselves there were as passengers a corporal of the R.N.W.M.P. 
and a crazy Indian woman under his charge; and Duncan MacDonald, a 
member of the Indian treaty-paying party. The Indian woman had been 
brought down the Liard River by Duncan ; they came up from Fort Simpson 
with us on the Mackenzie River, and on arriving at Fort Smith the woman 




The Hudson Bay Co.'s Party and Their Passengers 



was turned over to the police who sent her out to Athabasca Landing under 
the charge of Corporal La Nauze. No one understood her language ; she 
came from some distant tribe on the eastern slope of the Rockies and her 
talk was as unintelligible to the Crees and Chipewyans of our crew as it was 
to ourselves. We called her "Matilda," her madness was at least of a 
cheerful inoffensive nature; she would laugh and sing and dance by the 
hour, and altogether she added very much to the gaiety of the crowd. 

The first part of the journey to Fort Mackay was pleasant enough with 
the Primrose to tow us; we made good headway and she gave us protection 



Steamer anb Scow again 



265 



and warmth on cold days. The season was advancing with rapid strides, the 
autumn colours were now lovely ; sometimes there would be large areas where 
pink tints prevailed, but the predominant tone was pale yellow; overwhelming 
masses of uniform yellow would alternate with the unchanging sombre spruce. 




Fort McKay 



We reached Fort Mackay on September 18th and camped a little above 
the post on the opposite shore. Here we hauled the Primrose out of the 
water, laying her up for the winter. 

Then we took to the tracking line, but it was not till we struck the rapids 
above Fort MacMurray that our troubles really began. 

The scow was a small one ; it was heavily loaded for upstream work, 
and the tracking crew was short-handed. Following the long-established 
custom of the country, the general charge of the job was in the hands of the 



266 



Xante jforlorn 



Indian pilot. In this case he was a good man and a very hard worker him- 
self, but he had no authority over the crew and no idea how to handle a crowd 
of men. The Hudson Bay Co.'s men never interfered in any way and the 
outfit moved or stopped at the sweet will of the tracking crew. 




The Primrose 



We had left our canoe at Fort MacMurray, and we regretted at the time 
not having tracked it up ourselves. But between MacMurray and the 
Pelican Portage, a distance of 150 miles, the Athabasca River is in fact a 
very difficult and dangerous river to track up with a canoe. It was not till 
we were past the bad places that we were in the proper frame of mind to 
judge the performance of the crew, to give them just credit for their really 
hard work, and to realise how much wiser we had been in staying with the 
slow but safer scow. At the time the incessant delays and slow progress 
were intensely irritating to us, who had been accustomed to doing things in 



Steamer anfc Scow again 



267 



a much smarter way and to whom it was thoroughly humiliating to be so com- 
pletely dependent on the pleasure of an unorganised bunch of hand-to-mouth 
half-breeds. We were all impatient to get home, and when we arrived at 
Fort MacMurray we had thought we were pretty near our journey's end. 
The following, copied from my notes made at the time, a day taken at 





^^oamsw 





A Long Hard Struggle 



hazard, will give some idea of the difficulties and slowness of our progress, 
and of our impatient temper. 

"Tuesday, Sept. 24th: Cold this morning; we had several degrees of 
frost last night and the mud near the water frozen. All hands had break- 
fast, then we hauled the scow a little farther up; there is a small cascade and 
we lightened the scow just below it. Turning a fine day, leaves beginning 
to fall fast and only here and there a touch of green to be seen anywhere. 

"Carried the stuff up about a quarter of a mile, loaded up and made a 
start again at 10 a.m. Stopped 10.15 to change heavy line for a light one; 



268 



Xante ]forlorn 



we were then at a comparatively quiet stretch of the river. The men had 
dinner here and we made a start again at 1 0.52. Stuck at 1 1 , on again 1 1 . 1 5, 
stuck again at once, and fooled around till 12. We crossed the river then 
and had lunch on the other side. Water very shallow along here, constantly 
sticking and making scarcely any headway at all. From 1 till 2.30 nothing 




Slow but Sure 



doing, then the men had tea." (I hope the irony of this will not pass 
unnoticed !) 

"Made a start again at 3.00 and attempted to go outside a shallow 
bar ; the line broke and the scow drifted down to where it had been before tea ; 
a hell of an outfit this is, unspeakably sloppy, the scow too small, no tracking 
line worth a damn, not enough men, and no one running things. We 
finally got up past Meatsu Point, then came a quiet stretch of the river for 
about a mile, then shallow water, and we stuck again. After fooling around 
for some time they decide to camp. ..." 



Steamer anb Scow Hgain 269 

It took us seventeen days to reach the Pelican Portage, an average of 
less than nine miles per day. The weather turned cold and colder, the 
leaves all fell, the banks of the river were frozen, and it looked as though we 
might be hindered yet by ice forming on the stream. 

At last we passed the Pelican Rapids and on the quieter water above 
we made better time ; with the end of the journey in easy sight every one 
worked with a will; we took spells on the line, and at this quiet part of the 
river we could rest on the scow between tracking spells. 

Then the weather turned fine and warm again ; it was the Indian summer 
of the year, with nature in its most enchanting mood. My last memories 
are pleasant ones only : of quiet waters and comfortable camps, of fine nights 
and finer days, of short spells of work and long spells of rest ; sitting at ease 
in the scow, lazily watching, through an atmosphere of uncomparable purity 
and ineffable calm, the naked trees reflected in the tranquil stream in all 
their beauty of line, and the faint silver threads of gossamer floating in the 
still air. Time itself had come to a standstill ; such afternoons seemed as 
though they might last forever. Eighteen months before the North had 
welcomed us in all the ecstasy of spring ; now that the time had come to bid 
farewell it showed itself in another and even more alluring mood, determined 
if it could not hold us that our crowning recollections at least should be of 
intimate charm and poignant beauty. 

We saw the houses of Athabasca Landing come into view again as we 
had watched them disappear so long before. A few minutes more we were 
alongside, and our northern adventure had come to an end. 



XI 

CONCLUSION 

AT first there was no strangeness in getting back to civilisation. The 
contrast was so complete and the interests so different, and yet so 
familiar that we took up our civilised life where it had been broken 
off; we resumed at once our old set of ideas and our old ways of doing things. 
Some time passed before we began to feel in many subtle ways the results of 
a long absence. In regard to the great world we were the same people who 
had left it eighteen months before, but while we were relatively unaltered 
our world had gone on its appointed course, and unhastening, unceasing, the 
appointed changes had been wrought. It was ground irrevocably lost; no 
skill, nor energy, nor address, could recover it. The times had changed, 
the change in ourselves had no reference to them but made conformity to 
established usages more than ever difficult. You get nothing for nothing; 
for everything in this world a price is exacted. God is not given away, nor 
can heaven be had for the asking. 

Two more views of us, and I have done. 

The first a few days later. We are passing rapidly eastward over 
the great Canadian plains, sitting in warmth and comfort in a luxurious 
dining car. No slimy, muddy moccasins are on our feet now, and no 
caribou hairs on these steaks, but we didn't think the bread any better 
than our bannock, and the soup is distinctly inferior to that we made at 
Hodgson's Point. 

Without it is snowing hard and the windows are so blurred that only 

270 



Conclusion 271 

a vague haze of driving snow and swiftly passing telegraph poles and fence 
posts can be seen. 

We are talking of our late companions of the north : of La Nauze and 
the Indians making their way back to Chipewyan in such weather as this; 
of Hornby and how winter must have set in with him. We regretted more 
than ever that he was not with us, and we wondered whether he would have 
revelled in the bill of fare as much as he always said he would. 

A few days later and the last scene. 

The Doctor has left us now to meet his own friends. Lion and I are 
together once more in a canoe; the Alouette seems strangely light and swift 
after the heavy Aldebaran. For a load we have only ourselves and the small 
bag containing our records, the bag that has come so far and by such varied 
means. We are finishing our long journey as we started it; we are back on 
clear waters and among woods of unequalled beauty. In our flying trip 
across the continent we have overtaken autumn; even yet some trees show 
scant remnants of their summer green. That dear poplar-crested ridge 
comes in sight; the trees have held their leaves to the last to welcome us, 
and red against their yellow, the flag proclaims that we are home at last. 




L'ENVOI 

Flights of returning fowl that fling 
In changing runes across the blue, 
What time, incredible in hue, 
The Barrens flush to Spring. 

Dark herds of hurrying deer. The call 
Of beast and bird and south wind rains. 
Deep whisperings in the bleached moraines 
Where stones and water fall. 



So comes brief Summer to your lands 
Lady of Silences serene. 
How doth it profit us, Queen, 
The labours of our hands? 

Naught. We have come, and seen, and known 
Full franchise — only to depart 
Leaving, as hostage of each heart, 
All that was most our own. 



You hold it now. No Spring may wake, 
But, midst its alien imagery 
We see blue tracts of rippling sky 
Invade the iron lake. 
272 



XXnvot 273 

No skyward-lifting smoke uncurled 
But straight there glows, in acrid haze, 
Some fire of grey beleaguered days 
Whose light defined our world. 



No wind that sweeps embattled spears 
Of pine, no brawling stream at play — 
But shouting rapids rise in spray 
To stun our deafened ears. 

While smoke shall rise, while wood shall burn, 
While stars shall wheel and waters run, 
Thou weavest with the wind and sun 
Charms that constrain return. 



What is our count? The best we know? 
The crown of Effort — all Desire? 
A broken camp, a burnt-out fire, 
A sledge-track in the snow. 

Bryce McMaster, ("Clansman.") 
18 



APPENDIX A 

[From Franklin's Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, 1810- 
20-21-22. Geognostical Observations by John Richardson, M.D.] 

The Copper Mountains consist principally of trap rocks which seem to be 
imposed upon the new red sandstone or the floetz limestone which covers it. A 
short way below the influx of the Mouse, the Coppermine River washes the base 
of some bluish-grey clay-stone cliffs, having a somewhat slaty structure, dipping 
to the north at an angle of 20 . 

The Copper Mountains appear to form a range running south-east and north- 
west. The great mass of rock in the mountains seems to consist of felspar in 
various conditions; sometimes in the form of felspar rock or clay-stone, some- 
times coloured by hornblende, and approaching to greenstone, but most generally 
in the form of dark reddish-brown amygdaloid. The amygdaloidal masses con- 
tained in the amygdaloid are either entirely pistacite, or pistacite enclosing 
calc-spar. Scales of native copper are very generally disseminated through this 
rock, through a species of trap tuff which nearly resembled it, and also through 
a reddish sandstone on which it appears to rest. When the felspar assumed the 
appearance of a slaty clay-stone, which it did towards the base of the mountains 
on the banks of the river, we observed no copper in it. The rough, and in gen- 
eral rounded and more elevated, parts of the mountain, are composed of the 
amygdaloid; but between the eminences there occur many narrow and deep 
valleys, which are bounded by perpendicular mural precipices of greenstone. It 
is in these valleys, amongst the loose soil, that the Indians search for copper. 
Amongst the specimens we picked up in these valleys were plates of native 
copper; masses of pistacite containing native copper; of trap rock with asso- 
ciated native copper, green malachite, copper glance or variegated copper ore and 

275 



276 appenbii a 

iron-shot copper green, of greenish-grey prehnite in trap (the trap is felspar 
deeply coloured with hornblende), with disseminated native copper; the copper, 
in some specimens, was crystallised in rhomboidal dodecahedrons. We also found 
some large tabular fragments, evidently portions of a vein consisting of 
prehnite, associated with calcareous spar and native copper. The Indians dig 
wherever they observe the prehnite lying on the soil, experience having taught 
them that the largest pieces of copper are found associated with it. We did not 
observe the vein in its original repository, nor does it appear that the Indians have 
found it, but judging from the specimens just mentioned, it most probably tra- 
verses felspathose trap. We also picked up some fragments of a greenish-grey 
coloured rock, apparently sandstone, with disseminated variegated copper ore 
and copper glance ; likewise rhomboidal fragments of white calcareous spar, and 
some rock crystals. The Indians report that they have found copper in every 
part of this range, which they have examined for thirty or forty miles to the north- 
west, and that the Esquimaux come hither to search for that metal. We after- 
wards found some ice chisels in possession of the latter people twelve or fourteen 
inches long and half an inch in diameter, formed of pure copper. 

To the northward of the Copper Mountains, at the distance of ten miles, in 
a direct line, a similar range of trap hills occurs, having, however, less altitude. 
The intermediate country is uneven, but not hilly, and consists of a deep sandy 
soil, which, when cut through by the rivulets, discloses extensive beds of light 
brownish-red sandstone, which appears to belong to the new red sandstone forma- 
tion. The same rock having a thin slaty structure, and dipping to the northward, 
forms perpendicular walls to the river, whose beds lie a hundred and fifty feet 
below the level of the plain. The eminences in the plain are well clothed with 
grass and free from the large loose stones so common on the Barren Grounds, 
but the ridges of trap are nearly destitute of vegetation. 

Beyond the last mentioned trap range, which is about twenty miles from the 
sea, the country becomes still more level, the same kind of sandstone continuing 
as a subsoil. The plains nourish only a coarse short grass, and the trees which 
had latterly dwindled to small clumps, growing only on low points on the edge of 
the river under shelter of the bank, entirely disappear. A few ranges of trap hills 
intersect this plain also, but they have much less elevation than those we passed 
higher up the stream. 



APPENDIX B 

REPORT ON A RECONNAISSANCE ALONG THE LOWER COPPER- 

MINE RIVER 

By August Sandberg, Ph.D. 

topographic features 

No high mountains exist in the area here considered, which extends from 
Dismal Lake eastward to a few miles beyond the 116th meridian, and trends 
northward approximately following this meridian from 67th parallel to the mouth 
of Coppermine River. 

The Copper Mountains, by which term the high land trending east-south-east 
from Dismal Lake to Coppermine River and beyond, is designated, are formed by 
a series of basalt ridges with the same general trend as the range, and occupy a 
belt about fifteen miles wide. Towards the south they terminate abruptly in a 
nearly straight line, for miles, dropping with a perpendicular wall to the broad 
valley of slight relief adjoining the mountains to the south. The mountains 
attain only an elevation of 1200 to 1500 feet, presenting the appearance of a 
plateau, interrupted by a number of mutilated ridges, facing south with per- 
pendicular cliffs of varying height, and sloping gently towards the north. 

The Coppermine River, traversing the valley, with a northerly course to the 
south of the mountain, enters the Copper Mountains about five miles below 
Kendall River. Striking the hard basaltic rock it curves eastward and assumes a 
course practically parallel with the trend of the basalt ridges for a distance of 
twenty miles, before it cuts its way through the ridges with a curve toward the 
northwest and finally emerges with a northerly course on the plain to which the 

277 



278 



Hppenbu: B 



Copper Mountains slope towards the north. In its passage through the double 
curve the river has cut deep, and in some places has made a narrow valley through 



Bur ait Creek 



go 

" 3 







Amygdaloid with Copper*/ 



Amygdaloid with native. Copper *2. 
Conglomerate *4- 
Conglomerate * J" 



Conglomerate. *6 



Copper Stained Amygdaloid *Z 



Copper stained Slmygdaloid*^. 



Cong/omer&te V"? 



Bppenbii B 279 

the mountain. A number of small creeks flow at right angles into the river and 
drain the mountains through narrow, constricted gulches in many places dividing 
the hills in detached blocks. From the valley the mountains rise by steps in the 
nature of terraces to the summit. The highest altitude is attained by three 




$AMOSTON£ i BASALT 

SECTION OF BASALT RIDGE NORTH OF SANDSTONE RAPIDS 

(Vertical Scale Five Times Horizontal) 
Fig. 2 

adjoining peaks at the point where the river begins its eastward course. The 
bottom of the valley in many places is occupied by low ridges and small hills 
consisting of clay and gravel of glacial origin. On the north-west course of the 
river, where the valley is quite broad, these clay and gravel deposits extend about 
a mile from the river on the south shore forming a typical miniature glacial land- 
scape. A good growth of spruce is sustained from this soil, especially along the 
north shore of the east course and on both sides of the north-west course of the 
river. 

To the north of Copper Mountains the country presents the character of a 
plain with slight relief, traversed with narrow basalt ridges of the same general 
trend as the Copper Mountains. Only the first and last of these ridges attain an 
elevation of about four hundred feet. Through this plain the river has cut 
a channel about one hundred feet deep with perpendicular sides of sandstone, 
alternating in some places with shelving clay banks. Where the river cuts 
through the basalt ridges the channel becomes tortuous and constricted to about 
fifty yards and less from its average width of about three hundred yards. 

GEOLOGIC SKETCH 

The results of our observations regarding the distributions of the geological 
formations are represented on the accompanying geological map. In making 
the map the observations of latitude and longitude made by Franklin have been 



280 Hppenbix B 

used. All locations represented on the map have been made with compass and 
pacing. Magnetic declination 48 East. 

LIMESTONE 

Along the southern edge of the Copper Mountains limestone forms part of the 
cliffs, with which the mountains frequently terminate toward south. On a fresh 
fracture surface the limestone shows a highly crystalline texture, generally fine 
to medium grained, of impure white or grey colour, which sometimes has a reddish 
tinge. Farther south between the mountains and Kendall River the in part 
precipitous west shore of Coppermine River is composed of limestone cliffs about 
one hundred feet high. At the exposure in the gorge, through which Kendall 
River flows into the Coppermine, the limestone beds are interleaved with thin 
strata of fine-grained red sandstone. The dip of the limestone is flat towards 
the north under the mountains. 

COPPERMINE SERIES 

The Copper Mountains are composed of a series of superimposed flows of 
basaltic lava, which occupy a belt about sixteen miles wide in a direction at right 
angles to their strike. Their lateral extension is large, probably reaching east more 
than two hundred miles across Bathurst Inlet, where Hanbury describes the occur- 
rence of basalt with native copper. Westward, and about forty miles north of great 
Bear Lake, there is said to exist basalt, exhibiting the same general character as 
the basalt at Coppermine River. Interstratified with the basalt are a number 
of detrital beds of reddish conglomerate. These occupy various horizons, but 
as far as our observation goes, they are more numerous in the upper part of the 
series. The basalt occurs in distinct beds of varying thickness, striking ap- 
proximately parallel with the range. Westwards at Dismal Lake the beds strike 
east 22 south and show a dip of only 8° towards the north. At the great bend of 
Coppermine River the strike is approximately east 12 south and in the upper 
part of the series at Burnt Creek, the beds strike a few degrees north of east. 
The most common dip is 12 north. The effect of the bedded basic rock upon 
the topography is everywhere marked ; a steep cliff facing south and a long back- 



Hppenbii B 281 

ward slope towards the north forming a shallow drift-covered valley between the 
crest of one and the rising cliff of the succeeding bed. The small streams draining 
the mountains into Coppermine River divide the hills in detached blocks, rising 
terrace-shaped from the bottom of the valley. 

Some thick beds show columnar jointing in their exposed cliffs, but more often 
the jointing has broken the beds into irregular blocks with the jointing surfaces 
dipping steeply towards the north. Usually the beds present a twofold division, 
an upper narrower amygdaloidal and a lower compact nonamygdaloidal portion. 
The lower massive part of the bed is dense, crystalline, medium to fine grained, of 
dark grey nearly black colour, which in some places changes to reddish brown. 
The compact and amygdaloidal portions of the bed grade into each other through 
an intermediary zone with scanty development of amygdules. The amygdaloidal 
phase of the flow is usually covered by debris from the crumbling cliffs and drift 
material. The slope of the bed is always covered with grass-grown soil, through 
which little mounds of broken amygdaloid frequently stick up. In some of these 
the pieces show worn edges, while others contain pieces only with sharp edges 
and corners, indicating their connection with an amygdaloid bed at the place 
which is otherwise covered. Frequently these broken amygdaloid pieces con- 
tain small chips of native copper in the amygdules. 

The matrix of the amygdaloid is dense and shows usually signs of alteration 
in various stages of progression from comparatively fresh to completely altered 
to epidote. In some places the alteration has proceeded to such an extent that 
only a crumbling mass remains with harder portions of epidote. Such is the 
case at Burnt Creek where an amygdaloid of this character was found, containing 
chips and flakes of native copper in the altered rock, and at Copper Creek where an 
amygdaloid outcrops, which shows prominently as a reddish mass with intermixed 
epidote. Some native copper was found in this bed also. The amygdules are 
filled with calcite, zeolites, epidote, chlorite quartz, a red mineral which probably 
is secondary orthoclase and native copper, one or more of these minerals filling 
the cavity. The amygdules show some variation in size and form. They are 
usually small, although amygdules measuring more than 6" were observed, in one 
place. At north shore of Dismal Lake an amygdaloid with elongated compressed 
amygdules, suggesting a viscuous flow, occurs. 

In places small fissures penetrate the beds, forming sometimes a 



282 HppenMi B 

network of small seams, traversing the shattered rock. They are rilled 
principally with calcite, sometimes containing chalcocite. Fissures of this 
kind were observed striking nearly north and south and east-west. The 
conglomerate beds, which occur interstratified with the basalt beds, consist of 
pebbles of basic rock, pebbles with amygdaloidal development predominating. 
The matrix is apparently of the same material and is frequently permeated 
by calcite. 

To the north of Copper Mountain a sandy shale overlies the basalt bed and 
is succeeded by fine to medium-grained sandstone, which continues north to the 
Bloody Falls, a distance of about thirty miles. Both shale and sandstone are of 
dark red to brown colour. The sandstone consists of grains of quartz and fel- 
spar, with a highly ferrugineous matrix. The felspar grains, which are smaller 
than the quartz grains, predominate. These sandstones are similar to the sand- 
stones in the "Nonesuch" group of Keweenaw series. The deposition of the 
sandstone was interrupted at four different times by eruption of basalt, which 
flowed over the floor and became interbedded in the sandstone. (Fig. 2.) None 
of these flows attained more than a few hundred feet thickness. The rock shows 
a somewhat coarser crystalline texture than the basalt at Copper Mountains, and 
the amygdaloidal phase of the flow is either scantily developed or non-existent. 
Between the last two basalt ridges occurs thin strata of a greenish grey slate inter- 
bedded with the sandstone. Judging from the appearance the islands in Corona- 
tion Gulf beyond the mouth of Coppermine River and the capes on the west shore 
of the gulf are composed of basalt ridges. 

DYKES 

At the foot of Sandstone Rapids a dyke, striking south 17 east, crosses the 
river. The dyke, which stands perpendicular, measures one hundred feet and con- 
sists of plagioclase felspar and a ferromagnesian mineral. It is possibly the 
source of the magma which formed the flows that are interbedded in the sandstone. 
The dyke shows cross-columnar jointing. The centre part is coarsely crystalline, 
gradually becoming finer in grain to glassy at the contact with the sandstone. 
The dyke-rock shows some copper-stain at the contact with the sandstone. 
The sandstone has been changed on both sides of the dyke from the bak- 



Hppen&ix B 283 

ing of the hot magma. The red colour is changed to grey. The compara- 
tively soft sandstone has become hard and fissile at the contact with the 
dyke. The change is visible, gradually diminishing to 150 feet from the 
contact. No data regarding the age of the Coppermine series were obtained. 
Petrographically they show great similarity to the Keweenaw series at 
Keweenaw Point. 

GLACIAL DEPOSIT AND GLACIATION 

In the Copper Mountains evidence of ice action is everywhere present in the 
form of bed-rock scorings on the crests of the basalt ridges, which have been 
rounded off and polished. Occasionally a cliff shows scorings, indicating ice 
movement along the cliff. Glacial drift is to be seen all over the mountains. In 
the valley the lower benching and bed-rock topography is in some places concealed 
by small terminal moraines and till-sheets, in no place reaching far up on the hill- 
side. Most in evidence are the glacial deposits in the small basin around Tepee 
and Larrigan creeks and along the south shore of the Coppermine River on its 
north-west course through the mountains. The sandstone is covered by a thin 
sheet of till. 

On the south side of the basalt ridge at Bloody Falls several hills of grayish 
white stratified clay lie against the basalt cliffs on both sides of the river. These 
hills, which are about two hundred feet high, have very steep sides, intersected 
by ravines, and present a very striking appearance. 

COPPER OCCURRENCES 

It has long been known that copper in the native state existed in the northern 
part of Canada. It furnished the source of supply for the weapons and utensils 
of copper used by the Indians before they were supplied with iron from trading 
posts. 

As early as 1771, Samuel Hearne on his journey to the Northern Sea estab- 
lished the fact that the Indians got their supply of copper from the Copper 
Mountains. He describes the "mine" he visited as situated about thirty miles 
south-south-east from the mouth of Coppermine River. That would be in the 



284 Hppenbii B 

upper part of the series of basalt beds constituting the Copper Mountain, and 
would correspond to the eastward prolongation of the amygdaloid beds, which 
outcrop in the hill in the north side of Burnt Creek. 

Later, in 1821, the Copper Mountains were visited by Sir John Franklin 
and Sir John Richardson. Their investigations were made on the north side of 
the big bend of Coppermine River around Stony, Glance, and Big creeks. They 
found many evidences of native copper, but as Richardson states they "did not 
observe the vein in its original repository, nor does it appear that the Indians 
have found it." Recently, Hanbury observed the occurrence of native copper 
in basalt on the islands in Coronation Gulf at Bathurst Inlet. These islands are 
probably the eastward continuation of the Copper Mountains. Even to-day 
the Coronation Gulf Esquimaux, or at least some of them, come to the Copper 
Mountains for their supply of copper. These people do not possess tools for 
working rock and are restricted to digging in loose rock for pieces of copper 
liberated through weathering and decomposition of the rock. 

Judging from specimens in possession of the Esquimaux we met, the pieces 
usually found are comparatively small, although they occasionally find pieces large 
enough to beat out knives about 8" long and about 3" wide. In our search we 
did not find any large slabs of native copper. But in many places we observed 
small chips or flakes of native copper in the broken pieces of amygdaloid which 
forms small heaps in the flat soil-covered valleys on the back slope of the ridges. 
Usually more or less of a green copper-stain indicates the presence of native copper. 
In two locations or horizons we found native copper in place in amygdaloid beds, 
viz.: at the head of Copper Creek and in the hill on the north side of Burnt 
Creek. 

At Copper Creek on the east side, well upon the hillside, an amygdaloid, show- 
ing an exposure of about thirty feet thickness, outcrops. The amygdaloid is 
much altered presenting a reddish appearance, which is noticeable at a distance. 
Kidneys or irregular masses of epidote occur in the bed. The altered rock shows 
a copper-stain on the outside, and although not abundant, small chips of native 
copper were found in this amygdaloid. It is, however, common that the broken 
rock shows copper-stained amygdules — (Specimen 145). The dense lower non- 
amygdaloidal portion contains tiny specks or shots of native copper. A short 
distance below this bed lies a conglomerate, but no copper was observed in it. 



HppenMi B 285 

The most favourable locality for native copper, so far as our observation went, 
is at the north side of Burnt Creek. 

A cross-section of the hill is given in Fig. I. The bed marked No. I shows 
an exposure of about twenty-five feet thickness with frequent copper-stain 
in the amygdules — (Specimen 139). Red bands of a much altered rock with cop- 
per carbonate stain occur in the bed, which in places show cleavage like stratifica- 
tion. In bed No. 2 the rock, where exposed, has been very much altered in some 
places to epidote and a crumbling mass of light-coloured rock, in which nearly all 
the amygdules contain copper carbonate— (Specimen 140). Native copper in 
the form of chips and flakes is fairly abundant in this altered rock. In some 
instances a small un-oxidized chip of native copper can be observed enveloped 
in copper carbonate. Small fractures contain chalcocite. As far as the bed is 
exposed it shows a depth of about twenty-six feet. Above this amygdaloid lie 
three conglomerate beds. Of these the two marked No. 5 and No. 7 show a thick- 
ness of ten to fifteen feet and contain some native copper in the amygdaloid peb- 
bles. The bed marked No. 6 shows an exposure indicating a depth of four feet. 
The two amygdaloid beds marked No. 3 and No. 4, lying higher up, both show 
frequent copper-stain, but no native copper was observed in them. 

At Glance Creek, about a mile from its mouth, occurs what appears like a 
breccia but probably is the filling of a crack. It consists of altered basic rock 
cemented together with quartz calcite and chalcocite. It outcrops irregularly 
in the bottom of the creek and on the east bank of the creek, where in places the 
adjoining rock looks like sandstone, stained with copper carbonate. No native 
copper was found here except as tiny shots in the hard basalt a few hundred paces 
to the east — (Specimen 149). Similarly at the mouth of Stony Creek the hard 
basalt shows native copper — (Specimen 148). Here the amygdaloid phase of 
the flow has been eroded away and is covered by drift where it dips under the 
mountain. Only in places the intermediary part, showing scant development 
of amygdules, remains. 



OP0 







SKETCH MAP 
SHOW/NO THE AUTHOR'S ROUTE 
TO THE COPPERMIHE RIVER 



Geological Map 

JLOWEK COPPERMINE RIVEM 



CORONATION GULF 




